The integral equation formulation for transient radiative transfer in a 3D absorbing and anisotropically scattering medium is developed. The method developed is applied to transient radiative transfer in 1D planar and 2D cylindrical linearly anisotropically scattering media exposed to pulse radiation. The integral equations for the two examples are solved by the quadrature method. The results by the present method agree quite well with those obtained by the Monte Carlo methods. The effects of various parameters are investigated. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.