The main site in Covent Garden uses the name of its parent institution, and is open to the public every day, excluding over Christmas,[3] having reopened in 2007 after a two-year refurbishment.

In July 2024, the Museum unveiled new branding in an attempt to reflect its coverage of all of London's transport system, not exclusively buses and trains.

[5] The museum's main facility is located in a Victorian iron and glass building that had formed part of the Covent Garden vegetable, fruit and flower market.

[12] The first parts of the collection were brought together at the beginning of the 20th century by the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC) when it began to preserve buses being retired from service.

It was housed as part of the Museum of British Transport at a disused tram depot in Clapham High Street (now a supermarket) from 1963 to 1972, and then at Syon Park in Brentford from 1973 to 1977, before being moved to Covent Garden in 1980.

The Covent Garden building has on display many examples of buses, trams, trolleybuses and rail vehicles from 19th and 20th centuries as well as artefacts and exhibits related to the operation and marketing of passenger services and the impact that the developing transport network has had on the city and its population.

[14] Larger exhibits held at Acton depot include a complete 1938 stock tube train as well as early locomotives from the first sub-surface and first deep-level lines.

A Hidden London exhibition ran until July 2023,[20] featuring a sized-down, walkthrough replica of the Aldwych Ticket Hall and Down Street Blitz Shelter which Winston Churchill used during World War II.

[21] The museum shop sells a wide range of books, reproduction posters, models, gifts and souvenirs, both at Covent Garden and online.

[23] The depot provides 6,000 square metres of storage space in secure, environmentally controlled conditions and houses over 370,000 items of all types, including many original works of art used for the museum's collections of posters, signs, models, photographs, engineering drawings and uniforms.