What was my favourite moment of last year?
Both for excitement and absurdity, it was attempting to do a BBC radio interview from a Trenitalia Regional Express train from Ancona to Bologna.
I’d known that Mini Switzerland was going to be funded that day, so I was ready. But I also knew that I was going to be on holiday and, on that particular day, crossing Italy by train from Ascoli Piceno in Marche to Trieste. Hence why I ended up explaining why we should learn from one of Europe’s best public transport networks from one of its worst.
But Mini Switzerland, despite being the thing I’m best known for in this sector, took up a small proportion of my time and contributed zero per cent of my earnings.
So what else did I do in 2026, and what have I learned from it?
Freewheeling Ambition
When I started Freewheeling as a business in 2024 (the podcast and blog date from 2021), I thought I’d be helping teams stuck in the treacle.
But that’s not what’s happened.
Instead, I’ve found myself working with ambitious teams who want to be even more ambitious.
I’ve had the privilege of working with Lothian Transport, Britain’s best bus and tram company and supporting them both with the integration of their two modes and with defining their three-year strategy. The Lothian Transport team are so ridiculously committed to high standards you wouldn’t believe. Yet they wanted me to help them get even better.
I’ve also been supporting three Combined Authorities to define their futures as integrated transport authorities. All three have similar ambitions for the outcomes they want to achieve for their local areas and all are passionate that transport is at the core of achieving social and economic progress.
My work with them has demonstrated what an exciting moment we’re currently at.
All three organisations started the year largely organised by project and funding pots, because that’s how Government has incentivised combined authorities to be. London, when it got devolution in 2000, was given a neat package of powers, all wrapped in a bow, and all starting on the same day (with the exception of the Tube which was delayed due to the public-private partnership controversy: but they still knew what powers were coming).
The CAs have been drip-fed funding, powers and projects over a decade, so their organisations, strategies and sense of self have built incrementally alongside them.
It’s been such an honour to be invited into these ambitious organisations and help them define the future that they want for themselves, and how they’re going to organise themselves to deliver these ambitions.
And deliver they must.
For the first time in my career, Government actually wants what we do. It’s committed to our agenda, it’s providing long-term funding, and it wants the outcomes. I’ve spent twenty-odd years in a sector where the priority has been to persuade people (including our own people!) that integrated public transport was worth having. That time has passed. We don’t need to sell it any more.
Andy Burnham gets it. His Government wants it. Our citizens need it. We just need to deliver it… with not much money.
Integration
Last January, when I wrote my review of 2025, I said integrated transport was becoming a bigger part of what I do. That turned out to be an understatement.
I’ve continued to deliver innovation awaydays, advise startups, work on operator commercial strategies but overwhelmingly my work has focused on transport integration. I’ve been working on that at a local level (including my voluntary work on Mini Switzerland), at a regional level and at a national level.
The fact there’s so much demand for my services in this space is hugely encouraging. People want me to help with transport integration because they want transport integration. After decades in which it’s been a weird thing that only London can possibly do, it’s suddenly mainstream nationwide.
A highlight of the year was being asked to give evidence to the Transport Select Committee on integrated transport. I was there for hours, but here’s the 100-second answer on why integrated transport is hard:
What am I for?
Earlier in the year I asked Max Sullivan, then Cabinet Member for Transport at Westminster City Council, what difference I’d actually made. I ask this quite often, partly out of vanity but mainly because I want to know what to do more of. He was incredibly generous, which was lovely. But what did I actually do that was useful, I asked?
He told me that having me around is like having a Collie. The energy is infectious, and that’s sometimes all you need.
That also explains why I enjoy public speaking so much. Standing up at a conference almost feels indulgent, but it turns out I can communicate in a way that genuinely motivates teams, and so I’ve decided that it is something I do that is actually valuable.
But, of course, energy is not all you need. You also need decisions. And one of the bits of feedback I’ve had over and again this year is that my style of facilitation (which is quite forceful!) is great because I force decisions. When I run workshops and board meetings (which I do a lot), I make sure that it leads to actions, answers and conclusions.
What did I do?
Right. Here’s what I actually did:
1: Three Combined Authorities and the shape of things to come
What was the story?
Three different CAs each asked for help with the same underlying question: how do we become a European-style integrated transport authority? What capabilities do we need? What’s our scope? What’s our mission? What’s our organisation look like? In each of the three cases, the catalyst was different (in one case, the question was triggered by the CEO, in one by politicians and in one by the transport team themselves. In all cases, it included thinking about operating model, decision-making, political accountability and whether you need different capabilities for different transport modes.
And what did you do?
Lots of workshops; all with the senior leadership team. Discussions with stakeholders. Lots of interviewing. Writing up what they thought and then workshopping the results. It’s a cliche but teams really do know all the answers, but they often don’t know what they already know - or have confidence that it’s right. And you need to be able to ask the right questions to pull out the things that teams don’t realise they know.
What’s the hard bit?
Keeping a room full of incredibly busy senior people focused on the future when their day jobs are constantly pulling them into today. They were, of course, fantastic at it - but it requires management and effort. The balance between officer and political was sometimes challenging. And I did a lot of benchmarking with European comparators, which meant lots of tapping up colleagues overseas and asking for their time. They were always most gracious.
And has it worked?
Ask me again in five years! But in all cases, papers exist that describe the future and the teams feel a sense of ownership over those futures.
2: Lothian Transport
What’s happening here?
Edinburgh has a bus company and a tram company, both owned by the city (to different governance structures), and a mandate to integrate them; not just from a customer perspective but organisationally. It also has a truly brilliant Chief Executive, Sarah Boyd, who wants them to work as one network for the customer and to be as good as they possibly can be. So the task was to come up with an organisational integration model that worked while setting an ambitious three-year strategy for the new organisation.
So what did you do?
I’ve been supporting Sarah throughout the year as the integration work has progressed. That included helping the executive team think through what they wanted to get from integration (including developing really simple tests they could apply to work out whether integrating a specific part of the business was a good idea or a bad idea) and then helping them pull ideas out of the wider leadership team and full management team. I’ve been lucky enough to spend time in every level of their business, including their Board, supporting them as they devise the strategy that’s going to help them navigate an increasingly complex political landscape.
What did you learn?
Just how good Lothian Transport are! And that no-one minds a ballsy facilitator.
3: Transport Focus
What was the story?
I’ve really enjoyed working with Transport Focus this year. They’re on a mission to make transport better for customers, and it’s a mission I’m passionate about. I’ve supported them with a number of webinars (including this pre-mortem exploring what it would look like if GBR’s a total disaster - so we can avoid that happening) and helping them with a new programme of bus customer deep dives.
And what did you do?
I hosted some webinars. Obvs. But also spent some really enjoyable time with the team figuring out how the deep dives could work and why they’d get under the skin of customer issues in a way that traditional research won’t. We’re due to run the first one this year, so let’s see how it goes.
Why does that matter?
Because our sector produces a lot of evidence and not always quite as much pacey action. This is an attempt to design the action in from the start.
4: A report on Digital Pay As You Go
What was this?
I believe we’re making the same mistake with ticketing that we did a decade ago. In the 2010s, I was trying to do a deal to use DfT funding to invest in contactless but the DfT’s preferred ticketing standard was ITSO smartcards. Now, DfT’s preferred ticketing standard (10 years too late!) is contactless, but I believe the future is geolocated digital.
I was lucky enough to be able to spend proper time on this report as my time was paid for by Fairtiq; the Digital PAYG company. Here’s the finished product.
Hang on. Isn’t that just marketing for the company that paid for it?
Fair challenge. But no. No-one can tell me what to write. I write reports I believe in and won’t change my opinions for money. But if someone wants to commission me to spend longer writing up what I believe in, be my guest! It’s no secret what I think on any transport issue: this blog is now longer than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so I’ve expressed an opinion on everything!
Another example of a report I believe in is this one I also published last year on Trams & Towns, funded by the RAC Foundation.
5: Mini Switzerland
Go on then. What happened?
It got funded. £6m of DfT revenue funding and £6m of capital from the East Midlands Combined Authority, for an integrated rural transport demonstrator in the Hope Valley built on Swiss principles. Roger Clarke of Hope Valley Climate Action and I had first met in May 2025, recruited a volunteer team by June, got a grant from the Foundation for Integrated Transport in July, finished the report in December, published it in February 2026 and it was funded in March and is now being delivered.
A lot of people have said to me how incredible it was that it happened so quickly. But the thing is, it was only quick in TRANSPORT time. Look at that timeline again; the one in the previous paragraph. It’s not quick by normal time. It’s just time in most sectors. It only felt remarkable in our sector because it’s not what we normally do.
Maybe it could be…
And now?
It’s EMCCA’s project to deliver and I’m purely acting as a ‘critical friend’ to them. But I really don’t want there to be just one Mini Switzerland demonstrator, as that’s too small. We won’t know which lessons are only relevant to Hope Valley and which are broader. So where else can host a Mini Switzerland? I did a talk to MSPs at the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood. Afterwards, lots of people asked for a copy, so I re-recorded it. It’s quite long (30 mins) but apparently it’s genuinely interesting and useful. Though you may not think that once you’ve seen it…
6: Speaking
Isn’t this the indulgent bit?
It always feels so to me! I’ve given keynotes in Switzerland, Germany and Portugal, for various private clients, spoken at the UK Rail Summit and others, chaired the Time for Trams conference in Coventry including a fireside chat with Mayor Richard Parker, given evidence to the London Assembly and House of Commons Transport Select Committee and, of course, continued to put out a podcast every week.
Is it indulgent? Yes, obviously. But I justify it to myself because people tell me they find them thought-provoking. And people are kind enough to pay me to do them, and I enjoy every one of them more than I probably should, so I’m going to keep at them.
7: Anything else?
I ran some one-off Board sessions, continued to advise some fantastic startups, carried on as a Women in Transport volunteer and wrote my blog every week and my Bitesize substack every day.
The thing I didn’t do: any work in rail. That’s a source of regret. I’ve thought as hard about GBR as about anything (all of it is here), and the kind of thinking I’ve been doing with combined authorities (about what an organisation at the moment of its creation should become), is exactly what GBR’s leadership team needs right now. I’d love to be part of it.
And what’s been your second favourite moment of the year?
Well, I said earlier that my favourite moment was a BBC interview about Mini Switzerland.
My second favourite has got to be the opportunity to drive a stake through the heart of Mobility-as-a-Service in the Mother of Parliaments. Watch this:
