A lot has happened in 2025!

Here’s my review of the year as experienced through my blog and podcast.

"Advisers advise and ministers decide!" It's said constantly. And it's just plain wrong.

Today's blog post is about how the culture of the civil service drifted so far from other organisations, and why the commonly-held belief that it inherently needs to be different is just wrong.

It explains how modern central Government culture is all based on a decades-old misunderstanding of a court case about a wartime food factory in Liverpool.

There are too many tourists. It’s destroying both places and the planet. It’s time for a Frequent Flyer Levy.

My review of the 2025 Budget Statement.

In summary… there’s not much there, and a lot of missed potential (especially fiscal devolution to cities) BUT…

… the EV per mile charge could just be the trojan horse to something genuinely exciting.

Free public transport must be a great idea, right?

It’ll get people out of their cars and helps low income families with the cost of living.

I hate to be a party pooper, but it’s a thoroughly bad idea.

Here’s why.

Integrated transport is for customers, but do you need an integrated transport authority to deliver integrated transport?

Today’s blog post is about what integrated transport means at an organisational level.

We all know that “integrated” transport is important, but what exactly is it?

How do we define good integration and how do we know when we’ve got it?

What makes this region one of the most economically productive on earth?

Public transport, of course.

There is a consensus that rail fares are too complex.

There is a lot of truth to this but it’s nuanced.

It’s very important we understand this nuance otherwise we’re in danger of fixing the wrong things.

The problem isn’t exactly complexity, the problems are cognitive effort, jeopardy and arbitrariness.

Let me explain by means of a visit to Boots.

The railway costs too much. But there are opportunities to earn more revenue by focusing on how customers actually behave.

The transport episode of Yes Minister is only one year younger than I am. Yet nothing has changed…

Here’s a my first Freewheeling TV Review.

How can we grow the transport network in the UK? By making better use of what we already have.

Let’s learn from the Swiss and prove it in the Peak District.

I believe in a place called Hope

Europe might be learning the lessons of car-dependence but the future is still being built in Silicon Valley. From AI to autonomous vehicles, we’re coding car-first thinking into the systems that will shape tomorrow.

We’ve accepted the car as normal, and everything else as the exception? It’s called Motornormativity.

Today’s post talks about how we got here and the consequences.

What's the biggest obstacle to high quality services in our country?

It's may not be fair to say the Daily Mail but it is the Daily Mail Test.

Organisations are so scared something will go wrong that they suffocate their people in controls and rules.

Public transport isn’t just about competing with cars: it’s competing in the attention economy.

We need to upskill.

Most organisations use management consultants in the wrong way for the wrong reasons.

Today’s post is about how I learned the right way to use them - and includes real-life examples of getting it wrong.

From private equity to pension funds to management buy-outs, Britain’s transport operators are now in very different hands. Part 2 explores what that means for investment, risk and the future of public transport.

The era of publicly listed transport operators is almost over, but hardly anyone has noticed it ending. This two-part post explores how PLCs once dominated public transport, and why they’ve all but vanished from the sector today.