All BLOG posts

Thomas Thomas

My Comprehensive Spending Review… Review

A detailed review of the 2025 Comprehensive Spending Review from a transport perspective.

From long-term city region funding and capital rule reform to the lack of a national strategy and underinvestment in London, this post explores what the Review gets right - and where it falls short

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Thomas Thomas

GBR Doesn’t Need to Be One Organisation

We assume Great British Railways must be a single organisation, but must it?

Some of the best railways in the world - like Switzerland’s - aren’t centralised, they are deliberately fragmented.

This post explores how fragmentation can drive pride, quality and resilience.

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Thomas Thomas

Sameness is Not the Same as Consistency

Sameness is not the same as Consistency, and neither are the same as Predictability.

As the new GBR brand is launched, this is a post about creating new transport brands - and understanding the difference between these three crucial terms.

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Transport Thomas Transport Thomas

V.L.R.

Coventry “Very Light Rail” promises to HALVE the cost of building new tram lines.

Is that really credible? Let’s find out.

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Business Thomas Business Thomas

We Need to Talk About How We Make Decisions

The biggest barrier to progress in transport isn’t politics, funding, or structures — it’s decision-making. But decision-making processes are human-made, and we can rebuild them. Drawing on lessons from Amazon and others, I share four simple tools that any transport organisation can start using tomorrow to move faster and more effectively. I

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Transport Thomas Transport Thomas

Accountability: Passenger Railway Governance

Inevitably, humans being what they are, a consultation issued by the Government proposes that the accountability mechanism for a business owned by the Government should be the Government, with the assistance of a watchdog appointed by the Government.

Here’s how we can keep all the good stuff in the consultation but tighten up accountability a bit.

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Transport Thomas Transport Thomas

A Tale of two Commutes

Last week, I commuted into both Manchester and London.

The experiences reveal why most UK cities have low productivity - and what needs to be done to deliver economic growth again

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