Zero emission buses need a bigger plan
Berlin, 2013 Nine years ago I was at an event in the Schoenberg district of Berlin, in what was a gas holder and is now repurposed as a conference centre. As well as being effortlessly Berlin cool, the gas holder also symbolises the energy transition as it is part of a wider buzzing former industrial […]
Lessons from the Covid experience
The inquiry into the UK response to Covid is only seeking evidence by invitation. So here’s my unsolicited viewpoint… Winter is on its way. And there are plenty of things to worry about other than Covid as our place on the surface of Planet Earth tilts away from the sunshine whilst we experience the unsettling […]
Lessons we can learn from Scandi cities
Scandi cities like Malmo are the hope of the world on climate. Sure they are doing all the things everywhere else is doing on transport (zero-emission vehicles, modal shift and so on) but they are also doing the research and development for the rest of us on what you need to do next on climate. […]
Making the case for transport authorities
“Underneath all the commercial activities of the board, underneath all its engineering and operations, there is the revelation and realisation of something which is in the nature of a work of art … it is in fact, a conception of a metropolis as a centre of life, of civilisation, more intense, more eager, more vitalising […]
Cost of living crisis – what will the impact be?
Is the cost of living the new Covid in terms of the impact it’s going to have on patronage and travel trends? If it’s too early to say yet what the medium and long term implications of Covid will be, then that’s certainly true of rising energy prices and all the other inflationary pressures. But […]
Bus safety shouldn’t be an afterthought
The National Bus Strategy for England has an opinion about everything; from bus shelters to bus numbers – it knows best. However, there’s one topic where it is curiously quiet. And that’s bus safety. Or perhaps I should say dangerously quiet, given the yawning gulf that now exists between the approach taken in London and […]
Bus cuts close doors onto the world
‘It’s like a forgotten world. It makes you feel depressed…we’ve got bus passes – that’s brilliant – I feel like framing mine…But no bus services to use them on. We’re on an estate surrounded by main roads. The whole of life is out there but we can’t access it.’ COVID may have changed the context […]
An unhappy new year for public transport
It’s been a shaky start to the new year for public transport and it could get a lot rougher yet. Let me count the ways… The ‘work from home where you can’ advice has hit public transport’s core commuting market hard. Meanwhile the pre-Christmas binge on shopping and socialising which kept public transport patronage afloat […]
Waters isnt willing to go with the flow
Small countries can do big things on transport – look at the public transport paradise of Switzerland. And when Rhodri Morgan was in his pomp in the early years of the Welsh Assembly it felt like Wales was about to forge its own path. But without that drive from the top, there was a sense […]
Funding and a finely balanced future
Now that the dust has settled from Comprehensive Spending Review, it’s becoming easier to see through the smoke and mirrors and work out what actually happened. The question people often ask is ‘is it new money?’. And ‘is it more money?’. All depends on what you are comparing it with. Which previous year’s actual spend […]