On the DLR, it is a terminus – one of seven end-of-the-line termini – for local services via Canning Town and London City Airport.

As the station lies just inside the eastern boundary of the London Olympic Park, much of the surrounding land was little more than a construction site until mid-2012.

Stratford International has four platforms in the station box: two at the outer edges and two shorter ones forming a central island.

In the centre of the station is a single-track inclined viaduct, rising to the east end along and above the length of the island platforms.

This is to allow out-of-service trains to leave the station box and reach the depot at Temple Mills.

Fisher described the station as "a big, generous light-filled bridge of steel and glass crossing the tracks and spanning the box".

[19] The typical off-peak service in trains per hour from Stratford International is 6 tph to and from Woolwich Arsenal via Canning Town.

The original intended purpose of Stratford International station was to act as the London stop for regional Eurostar trains bypassing St Pancras and continuing to other destinations in Britain.

[21] However, these services did not come into being, and Rob Holden, chief executive of LCR and deputy chairman of Eurostar, stated that, "stopping a high-speed train seven minutes out of St Pancras is less than ideal", leaving only the domestic Southeastern trains serving the station.

[22] By the time Southeastern was serving the station, the Transport Secretary Lord Adonis was urged by Sir Robin Wales, former Mayor of Newham, and Peter Miller, Westfield Stratford City's CEO, to order Eurostar to stop at the station.

[23] John Burton, development director of Westfield's Stratford City mall, said domestic services were a "poor substitute" for Eurostar: "International commuters are essential in order to realise the vision of a major metropolitan centre for east London.