The Freewheeling Podcast

The Freewheeling Podcast has now been live for exactly six months, so let's look back at some of the highlights from the first season. I won’t be releasing new episodes in August: too many listeners are away (as are too many guests!). So here’s a 10 minute summary of some of my favourite episodes of the last six months. If you’ve dipped in and out so far, here are my recommendations on those not t...

13 years ago, Simon Munk decided to take his local councillors on a bike ride to demonstrate just how dangerous the roads were for cyclists. Without knowing it, he’d kickstarted a revolution that resulted in Waltham Forest becoming a national (even global?) leader on cycling infrastructure - and led to Simon quitting his day job to become a full time cycling campaigner. He joins me on The Freewhee...

In the week that the Government publishes its decarbonisation plan for transport, my guest is someone that has thought deeply about this topic. Patrick Warner is both Lead Officer for Bus Decarbonisation at Liverpool City Region and Head of Innovation for Brighton & Hove/Metrobus (one of Britain’s most forward-thinking operators). Through his research, he has concluded that most of the bus ind...

Ray Stenning claims to have designed more train and bus liveries than anyone else, ever. It seems likely to be true. His designs span the world but all typify his obsession with ‘creating desire’. He believes that design is of fundamental importance but often both misunderstood and undervalued in transport. We discuss what good design is, why it matters… and (heretically!) why the old Routemaster...

Few people have championed buses like Katy Taylor. In an industry not renowned for rocking the boat, Katy Taylor has been a passionate advocate for the Government giving buses more support and attention. The National Bus Strategy, in part, owes its existence to Katy’s constant lobbying. Now in her last few weeks as Strategy and Customer Director at the Go Ahead Group, she is optimistic about the f...

Horace Dediu doesn’t just “get” micromobility, he invented the very word “Micromobility”! Back in 2015, he saw the transformational potential of small, motorised vehicles and has been championing their adoption ever since. Who better to discuss this global revolution with than the man who first saw it coming? Horace is an analyst and founder of Asymco , the Critical Path and Micromobility Industri...

Brianne Eby is an expert in transport policy who, in her role as Senior Policy Analyst at US transportation thinktank Enotrans, advises the federal Government, state Governments and local Governments. Last year she did a major piece of research into congestion pricing but we also talk about the wider environment for change in public transport globally. Brianne has a unique vantage point, both on o...

Charles Read teaches economics and history at Cambridge University. His areas of interest include pandemics, famines, financial crises and, on a brighter note, all things related to transport. Trains, planes, ships and cars have fascinated him since an early age. Recently, he has written several articles about the future of transport after covid-19. Before the pandemic decimated the indu...

My guest Dyan Crowther has run a traditional rail franchise, a non-revenue risk rail franchise, a region of Network Rail and now leads Britain’s only High Speed line at HS1. With experience of such a mix of incentives, systems and structures, she is the ideal person to talk to about running a railway in the post-Williams era.

Should companies have a wider purpose? Professor Alex Edmans has written extensively on why capitalism is the best way to grow the pie for everyone, but how companies can only succeed with a wider social purpose. The tensions between public and private are a constant feature of transport and in today's discussion we explore the role of wider corporate purpose in improving outcomes.

After - finally - discovering what the Williams Shapps Plan for Rail actually said, I got together with Sir Michael Holden to discuss it. After all, who better to pick it apart than someone who’s actually run trains for the Government. Michael Holden has first-hand experience of the strengths and weaknesses of both public and private sector, having twice been the Government’s go-to guy for bringin...

Professor Kate Jeffery is a global leader in the neuroscience of navigation. By monitoring the brains of rats as they move about a box, she can start to figure out how our brains learn where we are - and how we create a mental map of the world. In this discussion, we talk about how the brain works, the different parts of the brain used for navigation, why some of us navigate completely differently...

Giles Fearnley has founded two successful independent transport businesses and ended his career running the country’s biggest bus group. What has he learned from Blazefield, Prism and First? Are the things that drive growth the same as those that create a shareholder return? Is there a future for the big bus groups? Do we have a problem with short-termism? Giles looks back at his career to try to...

My guest this week has focused on transport for a decade. She was Shadow Rail Minister under Ed Miliband, Shadow Transport Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn and chaired the Transport Select Committee until the last election. We talk about what it’s like doing these different roles in politics, the key messages she’s heard on the select committee and the importance of long-term funding settlements in t...

Roc Sandford is a Catalyser for the environmental direct action group Extinction Rebellion. Living off-grid on an otherwise uninhabited Hebridean island, he spends time in London either taking direct action himself or pressing Extinction Rebellion’s case. In this episode, we talk about what ER want, get under the skin of how they work as an organisation and also dive into the thorny question of wh...

My guest this week is attempting to turn round a supertanker of a culture. Few places are more synonymous with car travel than IKEA. Yet the giant of blue boxes has committed itself to achieve not just carbon neutrality, but carbon negative - and all in the next ten years. Angela joins me on The Freewheeling Podcast to talk about what sustainable mobility means in an IKEA context, what needs to ch...

James Palmer has a vision for Cambridgeshire in which people travel under the city in autonomous pods. It sounds crazy, but when you talk to him, you hear just how it seems to make sense. As Mayor of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, he explains how he’s dealing with a fast-growing city, low population density and houses in the wrong place. We talk about Cambridge Autonomous...

My guest this week has been specialising in recruitment in transport for over a decade. She spends her time having conversations with key people in the sector, so understands who they are and what makes them tick. On The Freewheeling Podcast we discuss what the industry is thinking right now, and whether there is a ‘transport type’.

Rory Sutherland is a global leader in Behavioural Science. As Vice President of Ogilvy, Rory’s mission is to educate the world on how people think. He is passionate about explaining that people are not rational - we make decisions based on how things make us feel and we justify our feelings later with ‘rational’ arguments. If transport companies realised this, it would change the way they plan eve...

My guest this week is Corinne Mulley, who has been researching transport for over 50 years. She is especially interested in using the tax system to find new ways of financing public transport: property value uplift or road pricing. She’s Professor Emerita at the University of Sydney and was the inaugural Chair of Public Transport at their Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies.

After an extraordinary week for the bus industry, I got together with Leon Daniels (host of the Lunch with Leon podcast and former Managing Director of Surface Transport for TfL) to review what had happened. Is the bus strategy as radical as it sounds? Where are the hidden catches? And what’s going to happen next? Join us for a wide-ranging discussion of the potential and pitfalls of this momentou...

My guest this week is an expert in the funding and creation of new transport infrastructure. Graham Cross has been promoting new development throughout his career and is currently Director of the Heathrow Southern Railway. He joins me to talk through what the Heathrow Southern Railway is, why it's different and the wider lessons for how we fund transport nationwide.

"Just like the bus driver wants to be on the winning team, so a user wants to be a winner" - how to grow the bus business by James Freeman, someone who actually knows. www.freewheeling.info/the-freewheeling-podcast/james-freeman. From The Freewheeling Podcast by @thomasableman

My guest this week has created an innovation powerhouse in just a few years. From a career in technology, River Tamoor Baig intended to spend just a few years in transport, running the hugely successful Hack Train accelerator events. But he stayed and created Hack Partners - employing dozens of software developers to create revolutionary technology products. River talks frankly about the barriers...

My guest on The Freewheeling Podcast this week is Dr Benedict Morrison, lecturer in film and literature at Exeter University. We're going to be talking about how transport is depicted in films, from the 19th century right through to the present day.