Technology brings challenges as well as benefits
How will the economy adapt as work is increasingly done by machines?
Current Subjects
Climate Change
Just say it: save lives, drive less
Previous governments have been willing to ‘tell it like it is’ on public health issues like smoking, leaded petrol and drink-driving. We now need something similar on the subject of our ‘driving habit’.
Choose hope - it’s a decision to take with your eyes wide open about the climate challenge
The new IPCC report on global warming and its likely impacts should force us to decide on how we tackle this existential challenge.
A Climate for Change?
Another report from the experts, another apparent shrug of the shoulders from most of those who might usefully really take its worrying message on board.
Communication
Just say it: save lives, drive less
Previous governments have been willing to ‘tell it like it is’ on public health issues like smoking, leaded petrol and drink-driving. We now need something similar on the subject of our ‘driving habit’.
Consequences of the war could further hasten transport change
The war in Ukraine has already shaken the world order to its foundations, and we still don’t know just how far further the consequences may go.
National Transport Model: The obscure influencer that needs further review
The National Transport Model drives decision-making in a number of important ways - but greater scrutiny and some new thinking is required - if it’s to properly support good transport policy and investment outcomes.
Commuting
Peak Car might be coming but some car-dependents look incurable
The last few years have seen considerable discussion about the possibility that long-established trends in car ownership and use are changing, and that we may even have reached the point of ‘Peak Car’ - at least in developed economies like the UK.
Uber thinking goes beyond taxis
From its beginnings in the early days of the last decade, Uber was clear about its plans for long-term disruption to the transport system - and of a willingness for self-disruption too.
Not quite what we planned for - but still an asset
If the past is not always a good guide to what will be happening in the future, the present is not an awful lot better.
Electric Vehicles
Worth some thought before councils sent charging ahead?
There is an evident need to balance politics and practice in the great electric car conversion that will set a behavioural template likely to be a reality for decades to come.
Driving change: travel in the 21st century
Some of the worst mistakes in transport investment have been supported by huge volumes of forecasts, surveys and studies, confidently published with little recognition of their inconsistencies and errors.
Funding
Le Chatelier’s principle - protecting road projects from the rigours of consistent appraisal
Despite significant work to improve and refine the way road schemes are appraised and evaluated, they seem to still be having a charmed life in terms of winning approval and funding.
Making the right case, Using the right tools?
There’s quite a head of steam building up for a long hard look at how transport investment fits into the UK’s wider economic, social and sustainability strategy.
Levelling up is a challenge for transport too
It is easy to look at the idea of ‘Levelling Up’ through either cynical or simplistic eyes.
Highway Safety
Misplaced understanding about street safety is not an accident
In his latest regular contribution John Dales focuses on how the real cause of deaths and injuries on urban roads has been inadequately recognised.
Micromobility
Let’s let citizens take control
Local empowerment on traffic can be the key to rapid modal switch.
Mobility
Uber thinking goes beyond taxis
From its beginnings in the early days of the last decade, Uber was clear about its plans for long-term disruption to the transport system - and of a willingness for self-disruption too.
Now’s the time to take a positive for transport from the pandemic
Greg Marsden led a team that has closely tracked the changes that restrictions brought to our established behaviour patterns and analysed their implications. He strongly believes that the changes are both surprising, significant and structural.
A time for sharing?
Planning how we cater for future personal transport needs, and in particular for the future of the private car.
Pedestrians
Let’s let citizens take control
Local empowerment on traffic can be the key to rapid modal switch.
Time to act on pavement misuse
Glenn Lyons is fed up with waiting for promised government action to control the abuse of pavements by motorists and motoring. He wants 2022 to be the year that this issue is finally tackled.
Misplaced understanding about street safety is not an accident
In his latest regular contribution John Dales focuses on how the real cause of deaths and injuries on urban roads has been inadequately recognised.
Public Transport
Not quite what we planned for - but still an asset
If the past is not always a good guide to what will be happening in the future, the present is not an awful lot better.
All change for the trains and buses - but will it deliver?
'Public utility or private enterprise' is an issue of both very philosophical and practical dimensions.
Consequences of the war could further hasten transport change
The war in Ukraine has already shaken the world order to its foundations, and we still don’t know just how far further the consequences may go.
Technologies
Digital Navigation is driving traffic in new directions – we need to respond
Road users are changing their behaviour based on what their satnavs tell them, but the implications are not yet being recognised by those responsible for planning and operating the network.
Uber thinking goes beyond taxis
From its beginnings in the early days of the last decade, Uber was clear about its plans for long-term disruption to the transport system - and of a willingness for self-disruption too.
Technology brings challenges as well as benefits
How will the economy adapt as work is increasingly done by machines?
Transport Planning
Le Chatelier’s principle - protecting road projects from the rigours of consistent appraisal
Despite significant work to improve and refine the way road schemes are appraised and evaluated, they seem to still be having a charmed life in terms of winning approval and funding.
Digital Navigation is driving traffic in new directions – we need to respond
Road users are changing their behaviour based on what their satnavs tell them, but the implications are not yet being recognised by those responsible for planning and operating the network.
Important and credible fuzzy projections by the Department for Transport - but still fuzzy thinking about Stonehenge
Precision about future transport and travel patterns is impossible, though targets for meeting climate change and net zero commitments must be treated as achievable and necessary.