What’s the outcome for public transport?
Theresa May’s gamble has backfired spectacularly, but what are the implications of the 2017 general election for public transport? Remember the name Victoria Borwick. The final result of the election may well be one of the most significant. The Tories’ least business-friendly campaign in living memory has backfired catastrophically. The UKIP vote, it...
Sharing ideas in an age of uncertainty
Last month’s UITP gathering in Montréal considered bewildering change, and convergence on transit’s role in making better places Montréal is a city not afraid to be imaginative in the way it does public transport A vast trade fair in both ideas and equipment, UITP’s bi-annual global public transport get-together in Montréal last month...
Plugging into the air quality agenda
With dirty city air rising up the agenda, transport, energy and air quality policies need to plug in. Nottingham is showing the way Nottingham has one of Europe’s largest electric bus fleets ‘The Great Stink’ of 1858, where the Thames’ role as a sewer and industrial waste outlet culminated in an intolerable summer...
£690m to ease congestion?
BUDGET 2017 In 2010, Philip Hammond said the ‘war on the motorist’ had ended. Now he wants a war on congestion By Robert Jack The launch of a £690m competition for local authorities across England to tackle urban congestion and “get local transport networks moving again” was a welcome surprise in chancellor Philip...
US cities are getting smart on growth
Experience in America has shown that smart growth can benefit public transport – but the trick is to help make great places 71% of voters backed LA’s ‘Measure M’ Regrettably the word ‘smart’ may not automatically be the first word that springs to all readers’ minds in relation to the United States at...
The damage is matched only by the futility
After a long period of relative calm, we are seeing again a labour dispute as bitter and futile as the ones fought out in the 1980s Coverage of the 1982 train drivers’ dispute in the The Standard Disputes over changes to working practices seem to generate extraordinary levels of intransigence quite unjustified by...
Failure is the route to innovation
The bus industry must innovate or die. We just need someone to stop making excuses, take a chance and be prepared to fail Some companies are offering a glimmer of hope with bold new innovations, like Slide from RATP Dev By Mike Fletcher, mhd partnership In the previous edition of Passenger Transit (PT152), there...
Southern: Bring back the red lampposts
There’s no way back for Southern, and DOO is not the problem. Why not gradually recreate the much missed Network Southeast? Network SouthEast: much admired and much missed ASLEF calling off this week’s three day drivers’ strike on Southern to allow for meaningful talks on DOO (driver only operation) is hugely welcome, but...
Leave the office and offer a ‘helping hand’
Professionalism isn’t imperiously poncing around in a suit, it’s understanding your product, your customers and your staff Stagecoach chairman Sir Brian Souter could often be found behind the wheel of a bus, even when he was the group’s chief executive You would have thought it was rather important to have a reasonable knowledge...
Is Maynard the man with the radical plan?
Our Whitehall insider imagines what’s going on inside the minds of the mandarins at Great Minster House, home of the DfT You’ve got to admire our secretary of state’s bravado! He has told the RMT to stop playing politics with the railways over their strike action on Southern. Yet that’s exactly what Chris...
Tyne & Wear Metro: urban rail unleashed
The Metro is the bone structure of Tyne & Wear’s identity, economy and daily life – and it’s Britain’s innovation railway too There’s two key elements to a successful urban rail network – best use of emerging technology and local decision makers who embody the spirit of civic entrepreneurialism. That is the capacity...
See the light – #saveourwindows