The Freewheeling Podcast

Why don’t we build homes people wish to live in? Terraced streets are popular and sustainable and support shops, services and transport, so why do we keep building low-density, car-dependent suburbs? And what needs to be done to create a nationwide tram renaissance? These are just some of the questions I get into in discussion with David Milner, the MD of Create Streets. Create Streets is a curiou...

Everyone agrees we need more sustainable transport but no-one has enough money to pay for it. Could ‘land value capture’ be the answer? This is the approach where by transport lines are funded through the increases in the land value that the stations stimulate. Well, George Hazel thinks so. In fact, he knows so, because he developed the land value capture method used for the recently-reopened Nort...

Jarrett Walker has been designing bus networks for thirty years. From his consulting practice in Portland, Oregon, he’s built a specialism in helping cash-strapped local authorities optimise their networks through his business Jarrett Walker Associates. And you can’t optimise if you don’t know what public transport is actually for and how you’re measuring whether or not it’s achieving those goals....

Birmingham was the first city I lived in as a proper ‘grown-up’ and it was metamorphosing before my eyes. Previously famous as Britain’s ‘car city’, it ripped up its inner ring road the year I arrived. Today, the city centre is unrecognisable: spacious, walkable and with a brand new tram route snaking past brand new buildings. Anne Shaw has been involved in this transformation since she first move...

Politics tends to focus on what is to be done, but none of it matters if it doesn't actually happen. We've been living through a crisis of governance recently. Government has become centralised, micro-managing and subject to constant, wild oscillations of policy. Is this as good as it gets? The Future Governance Forum was set up to make sure it isn't. Grace Wyld is Head of Policy and Programmes an...

Karen Vancluysen has an infectious passion for sustainable transport and urban mobility. As Secretary General of POLIS, she runs a network of over 100 European cities and regions, all innovating to accelerate the transition to more sustainable mobility. In today’s episode, we chat about the places that are leading the charge, and the challenges of the growth of populism. She gives advice to politi...

Maria Hofberg’s rail company doesn’t just have satisfied customers: it has the most satisfied customers in Sweden. Not just the most satisfied rail customers: the most satisfied customers of any transport firm in the Swedish Quality Index, beating buses, airlines and ferry firms. The company in question is VR Snabbtåg and Maria is Chief Commercial Officer. She joins me on The Freewheeling Podcast...

A few months ago, I did a light-hearted LinkedIn post, giving out “Olympic” medals to my favourite European railways. Transport Strategy Consultant Laura Wright was immediately on my case, challenging my (somewhat subjective) rankings. So I thought we should debate it in your presence. In this episode we discuss our best (and most memorable - not always the same thing!) international train journey...

This week’s conversation is with a woman who has broken multiple glass ceilings. The worlds of investment, automotive and Turkish business are all overwhelmingly male-dominated, but Ahu Serter is one of the most respected figures in all of them. She is the founder of Fark Labs, a business attempting - as she puts it - to create the future of the world through combining startups and corporate entre...

What should the new Government do about transport? Big question: so the Labour party asked an independent group of experts to come up with the answer. Their report, which was published in September, is all-encompassing. Allan Cook, former Chair of HS2, joins me to talk about their recommendations and why it’s so crucial for the Government to take them forward

When Rishi Sunak stood up in a disused railway station in Manchester to announce the cancellation of HS2 to Manchester, he created something of a problem. One of the world’s most expensive railways is still being built, but will it be useful? The trains are too long for the platforms in Manchester, Birmingham will have too many platforms and Euston too few. Excess track capacity in the south will...

Laura Hadzik is one of the UK’s pre-eminent specialists in Transport Law. In this week’s edition of The Freewheeling Podcast , she tells me about the dangers of badly-drafted legislation and advises how to maintain compliance while also promoting innovation. Laura isn’t only a lawyer, however. Despite being a proud Mancunian, she’s a Freeman of the City of London and a member of the Worshipful Com...

After what felt like a lifetime of waiting, we finally found out yesterday what was in the budget. This morning, I got together with Sir Michael Holden (former Chief Executive of Directly Operated Railways, the Government’s own train company) to discuss what it means. Join us for a wide-ranging discussion of the potential and pitfalls of this landmark first budget by a Labour chancellor for 14 yea...

Shin-pei Tsay has had what you would call a varied career in transport. She's worked in advocacy organisations, as an exec in Uber and now leads innovation in the City of Boston. In a wide-ranging conversation, we discuss how to make change happen, how to deliver innovation within big organisations and the importance of inclusivity of wider society.

Pete Dyson is the author of Transport for Humans, a book with influential readers. Louise Haigh took it out of the House of Commons library and enjoyed it. I’m not surprised: Transport for Humans is essential for anyone involved in the transport and mobility sector. In our discussion, Pete explains why our focus on rigid metrics risks distracting us from the things that users most care about, and...

Bernt Reitan Jenssen is the Chief Executive of Ruter, the public transport authority for the Norwegian capital Oslo. He has a vision: for a data-driven public transport network so responsive to user needs that it replicates the freedom offered by the private car. This may sound unachievable but Ruter has a track record. They have nearly achieved total decarbonisation of their vehicle fleet (four y...

Leila Zegna is co-founder and Partner of Kindred Capital, one of the top venture capital firms in the UK. In her day job, she backs entrepreneurs with small startups but huge ambitions. She is also a Trustee of Boston Children’s Hospital and spent most of her career in Silicon Valley. So she has a great perspective on what corporates can learn from startups and the differences between British and...

This week I’m joined by a council officer. But no ordinary council officer. Colin Knight is doing something extraordinary: working with scientists and automotive engineers to develop an entirely new form of transport. When challenged by his political masters to reduce the costs of a new tram network for Coventry, Colin realised that the only way to achieve a step-change was to reinvent trams from...

Vernon Everitt is Commissioner for Greater Manchester at a time of rapid (transformational?) change. Manchester is the UK’s pioneer for re-regulating buses as part of a wider integrated Bee Network, which is intended to bring together buses, bikes, trains and trams. On this week’s Freewheeling Podcast, we talk about how much has been done, what’s left to do, why Manchester has been able to move at...

Daniel Knowles is the Midwest Editor of The Economist. But when he spoke to me from Chicago, it was not about US politics but about cars. His book Carmaggedon describes in acute, forensic detail why cars make life worse. Not just for people who don’t use them, but for people who do - and for the billions of people who currently don’t but wish they did. His book is polemical in tone and, in this we...

Almost three years to the day since the previous episode of The Freewheeling Podcast, I'm thrilled to tell you that I'll be back next week to start Season Two. We've got a great series coming up, starting on Thursday with Daniel Knowles, author of Carmaggedon. It's a fascinating conversation - please do join me!

My guest this week is Chris Stark, the CEO of the Climate Change Committee. His job is to set the national carbon budget and then report to Parliament on whether we’re on track to hit net zero. Earlier this year, his committee praised the Government for its ambition in setting targets but warned that ‘time was running out’ for the delivery plans to meet those targets. He joins me on The Freewheeli...

Angela Hultberg is my first return guest on The Freewheeling Podcast . Since we last spoke she has joined the UN’s Climate Champions team preparing for the COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow. Her remit is road transportation and she joins me to talk about how the COP process works, what we can expect from the Glasgow conference and the priorities for transport decarbonisation.

Andrew Haines has a big task ahead of him. As well as leading Network Rail, he also has to create a completely new public body to run Britain’s railways. The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail outlined the creation of a new ‘fat controller’ organisation to manage the railways on behalf of customers, but the current CEO of Network Rail has the job of turning that vision into reality. He joins me to disc...

Professor Jillian Anable, of the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds, is an expert on the future of motor transport. She also has something of a track record as a forecaster: she accurately saw the trend towards SUVs coming, and fears they will be fatal to Britain’s chances of hitting its carbon targets. She tells me she is an ‘inspirational pessimist’, as we talk about what...