TfL sees 500 per cent rise in employees tapping into BYOD scheme

Transport for London (TfL) has overseen a rise of more than 500 per cent in its employees' use of mobile phones and tablets under its bring your own device (BYOD) scheme over the past three years.

Official figures obtained under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act by network automation provider Infoblox show that the number of activated devices has risen from 106 in 2010 to 583 in 2013.

Apple's iOS devices were the most popular, with the vast majority of TfL staff using an iPhone (320) or an iPad (178). Samsung had 87 devices used by TfL employees for work, while the operating system it uses on many of its phones - Google's Android - had 70 activations.

BlackBerry (22), HTC (19) and Windows Phone (15) lagged behind Apple and Samsung, and the likes of Nokia (2), Motorola (2) and Asus (1) were the least popular of the activated devices.

Microsoft's Surface (7), Apple Mac (3) and the Surface RT (1) were all also on the list, while six "unknown" devices were found to be activated on the network in the past year.

Last year, TfL's CIO Steve Townsend told Computing that the provision of Wi-Fi on London's underground stations would primarily help to improve communication between TfL's employees.

"We need to get more information to mobile staff. People don't make and control transport from behind a desk," he said.

He added that the firm adopted a BYOD policy to ensure that its employees were not restricted, before emphasising that information over the network is properly governed.

"We're running a safety-critical service for London. We need the blend of freedom of any device, including bring-your-own, wrapped around a set of policies that keep the networks governed to the standards desired by the inspectorates," concluded Townsend.