𝘈 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘹 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘢 𝘗𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩: 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙊𝙪𝙩𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝘿𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙨.

Holly is a hard-nailed transport policy officer.

She’s lived through tough times. With her sidekick Glen, she’s out to discover which interventions result in which outcomes.

Over the years, dozens of innocent interventions have been convicted of crimes they did not commit. That modal filter: convicted by model of increasing traffic on the main road. That tramway extension: convicted by model of offering a low BCR and banged up for life.

Can Holly prevent more innocent transport schemes being convicted for crimes they did not commit?

Some decisions are like haircuts: easy to change. Others are like tattoos: permanent, visible, hard to undo. Major infrastructure projects fall firmly in the tattoo category.

In a previous post, I advised that for “haircut” projects, we should just get on with it.

But what do we do about “tattoo” projects? That’s what today’s post is about.

For thousands of years, humans have tried to predict the future, from cracking turtle shells to financial models. Here’s why we still get it wrong and how we can build better business cases.

No-one can predict the future. Maybe corporate business case processes should reflect this