We know the pledges – but what’s the plan?
In signing up to climate change pledges politicians are also signing up to a seismic public policy shift – especially for the way we travel Climate change is the challenge of the century, both in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the worst effects of the continuum we are already on. We all […]
How can we support towns like Batley?
There are so many policy reports on transport and cities you could stack them up as high as the Beetham Tower. However, the pile of reports on transport and towns would struggle to get higher than the front step. Of course, getting big city transport networks right deserves attention. Wider city region economies, and indeed […]
When transport met housing…
Yesterday we held a roundtable in parliament chaired (at different stages) by both the Chair of the House of Commons Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee , Clive Betts MP, and his counterpart at the Transport Select Committee, Lilian Greenwood MP. Round the table we had housing associations, developers, planning bodies, transport authorities, local government, […]
Northern Ireland is getting ahead
Of the four main constituent parts of the UK, only one of them saw bus use grow last year. It is the same one on track to having a smart and fully unified ticketing system across all forms of public transport, and which has also seen the use of its rail network double in 10 […]
Health in All Policies – the transport connection
A few quick reflections on the thought provoking Health in All Policies conference we were a sponsor of on Wednesday and which our AD Rebecca Fuller spoke at (as part of our long term aim of getting better coordination across the health and transport sectors) – shamefully, health inequalities in this country are getting worse – all the […]
What do we really feel about the bus?
Most of the discourse on buses treats people as if they know what they are doing. It assumes that travellers are constantly making fully conscious rational economic trade-offs between cost and journey times and then making the logical choice as a result. And of course there is part of the brain that does this. This […]
No more tinkering – we need ambition
Bus funding helps to achieve a multitude of policy objectives for government – but real reform is required, not more of the same, writes Jonathan Bray. Putting public money into the bus is one of the biggest bargains in transport policy – but despite this the bus has been one of the biggest losers from […]
Buses – it isn't all about congestion
I agree with Brian Souter. When he said at last year’s Scottish CPT event that the bus industry relied too much on gut instinct and not enough on research. The Stagecoach chairman went on: “How much have we put into research and development in the last five years? We’re getting worse, not better…” Indeed nothing […]
The high street retail apocalypse (and should public transport learn to stop worrying about it?)
I took the temperature of the debate about the future of UK city and town centres at a packed out Key Cities conference this week. Here’s what I learned… Is the end nigh for the high street? Most things are still bought in shops, however high street retail is clearly in retreat as on-line sales […]
The secret life of the street – and what we need to know to make future streets work
For a couple of years now I have been banging on about the need for a debate on future streets (i.e. about how best to reconcile the complexities of all the different calls on street space – or more accurately the space between the buildings). So I am pleased to see that this is an […]