Nova is a programme of international railway benchmarking. It is made up of a consortium of fourteen medium sized metro systems from around the world - Bangkok, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Lisbon, Milan, Montréal, Naples, Newcastle, Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Taipei, Toronto and Sydney.

The four main objectives of Nova are:

1. To build measures to establish metro best practice

2. To provide comparative information both for the metro board and the government

3. To introduce a system of measures for management

4. To prioritise areas for improvement

All the group’s activities are determined by the member organisations. A senior manager from one of the members is elected annually as Chairperson and a work programme is developed to accomplish the group’s objectives. The Railway and Transport Strategy Centre (RTSC), at Imperial College London, acts as the administrator, facilitates the process and provides the research resources.

All Nova Benchmarking Group activities are carried out within a framework of confidentiality. Any information that is released is generally anonymised. No confidential information is allowed to be released to third parties without the expressed permission of the members. All member metro organisations are required to sign and adhere to a confidentiality agreement.