Transport Insights

The transport stories you won't see in the industry-friendly media

Author

Chris Ames

  • Third time lucky on National Highways’ most dangerous roads?

    With the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS 3) due imminently, does the latest safety report from National Highways’ regulator give any reliable hints about what the government-owned company will be expected to do to improve the inherent safety of its roads?

    While the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) seems to be on a mission to give National Highways a free pass as it fails badly to meet its safety targets, its recent annual assessment of safety performance on the strategic road network suggests that National Highways is planning to make at least some improvements.

    iRAP star rating provides an objective measure of the level of ‘built-in’ safety for vehicle occupants, motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians. It uses star ratings on a five-point scale, where a 1-star rating reflects a high-risk road with little safety infrastructure, while 5-star indicates a road with minimal risk, designed for safety.

    As part of our work to assess National Highways’ approach to improving safety we asked the company to demonstrate how it uses iRAP assessments to inform the development of safety interventions on the SRN. We have reviewed case studies and evidence the company has used to develop schemes currently in feasibility and design stages, for potential delivery in road period 3 (RP3).

    The report concludes:

    The evidence provided shows that National Highways is applying iRAP analysis to existing 1- and 2-star routes to identify the interventions most likely to improve safety outcomes. These include measures such as improved lane delineation, enhanced signing, pedestrian and cyclist safety improvements, speed management and access control (where road users join the SRN from local or other major roads). The aim of these interventions is to raise the star rating of the route and reduce the predicted number of KSI casualties over time.

    A cynic like me might think identifying potential interventions is pretty meaningless unless there is a chance of delivering them.

    But the flipside of this is that both the company and its regulator must have some expectation that resources will be provided in RIS 3 for this purpose.

    The problem is that the draft RIS 3, published in the summer, is so vague.

    Let’s start with what National Highways said in its 2023 Initial Report for the RIS that was due to start in 2025 until the new government put it back a year:

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  • Brabin: We have to prove mass transit can’t be a bus

    West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin has cast further doubt over expectations that the region’s mass transit plan will deliver trams, admitting that she is in a battle to prove to the Department for Transport that “it can’t be a bus”.

    Her comments at a meeting of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s (WYCA) Scrutiny Committee came alongside a refusal by transport secretary Heidi Alexander to confirm that mass transit would include trams.

    Brabin signalled the size of the battle by again publicly citing the support of chancellor and Leeds MP Rachel Reeves:

    It’s going to be a tram And as the chancellor of the exchequer said on camera, when she was interviewed about what Mass transit was going to be, she said, And Tracy, I said it was going to be a tram.

    However, we have to make the case, and that is fine. We are now in a process where we have to prove it can’t be a bus, and that’s fine. We’ll do that, because it will be a tram.

    At times Brabin seemed unsure whether she and Reeves were on the same side as Alexander or aiming for different outcomes, following the “resequencing” of the scheme on the back of a report from the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) last year:

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  • Did Cabinet Office comms diktat cost lives?

    The Office of Rail and Road’s (ORR) annual assessment of safety performance on the strategic road network, published today, provides some explanation for the Department for Transport (DfT) telling National Highways to cut back its safety plan for the current (interim) year.

    By way of a quick recap, I exclusively revealed that transport secretary Heidi Alexander told the company of which she is the sole owner to remove one action from its planned Safety Action Plan 2025-26. This was the HGV “know your zones” campaign. National Highways also curtailed two other road safety awareness campaigns.

    All three had the expected impact of reducing serious casualties.

    In its latest report, the ORR comments on National Highways’ Interim Delivery Plan, which included the safety plan:

    As we reported last year, government mandated a reduction in budgets for communication campaigns in 2024, which resulted in National Highways scaling back some of its proposed activities.

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  • Hendy: Our PAYG upgrade is long overdue

    There’s more good news, bad news on the rail ticketing front with Greater Anglia adding contactless technology to the 20 stations that were due to get it at the end of last year but which were put back to the summer.

    But, although the delay isn’t as bad as it was predicted to be, the whole programme to spread Transport for London’s (TfL) pay as you go (PAYG) beyond London is still years behind and less than halfway complete.

    Out of 233 stations that should have had the technology by the end of 2024, only 103 have now been delivered by TfL.

    Rather embarrassingly for rail minister Lord Hendy (who used to head TfL), he keeps saying the same thing about the upgrade being long overdue, even as he tries to sing its praises.

    In November, it was announced that 50 stations would go live the following month – the first tranche of a second phase. Hendy said:

    Rail ticketing is far too complicated and long overdue an upgrade to bring it into the 21st century.

    In December, it was announced that only 30 stations had been delivered:

    PAYG contactless will be rolled out to a further 20 stations, including Stansted and Southend airports, on Greater Anglia route during Summer 2026 after issues were identified in testing.  

    These are the 20 stations that have now had the technology implemented. Hendy said:

    Rail ticketing is long overdue an upgrade to bring the rail network into the 21st century.

    He is surprisingly frank on this: the upgrade is long overdue and, as I reported in November, there is no target date for adding the remaining 130 stations.

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  • Expect delays on delay repay changes

    Ministers have made headlines with the announcement that rail passengers will be able to claim Delay Repay compensation directly from third party retailers, but without saying anything about when it will happen.

    The BBC has reported:

    Train Delay Repay rule changes to make claims easier

    But the story begins:

    Train travellers who buy discounted tickets using railcards will face additional checks, as part of a trial to crack down on ticketing fraud starting in April.

    If the trial is successful, the plan will save £20m a year in lost revenue, while preventing confused passengers from being prosecuted for fare evasion, the Department for Transport says.

    Followed by:

    A separate scheme will also make it easier for passengers who buy their tickets from third-party retailers such as Trainline to claim compensation for late or cancelled services under the Delay Repay scheme.

    The confusion is entirely the result of the Department for Transport bundling two slightly related announcements together.

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  • Things can only get worse, then better

    The annual rise in the cost of the maintenance backlog on local roads as reported by the ALARM survey is guaranteed to get headlines but this year’s increase was predictable for reasons beyond inflation.

    The BBC reports that:

    The cost of fixing all the potholes on local roads in England and Wales would be an estimated £18.6bn, the industry body that oversees road surfacing has warned.

    Research from the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) found that just 51% of the local road network that is maintained by local councils were reported by those authorities to be in good condition.

    The chairman of the group called it a “national disgrace”.

    But here’s the problem:

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  • Alexander: Mass transit may not mean trams

    Heidi Alexander has cast new doubts over whether West Yorkshire’s plans for “mass transit” will ever amount to anything more than “a few better buses”, in what appears to be an ongoing battle between her department on one side and chancellor Rachel Reeves and mayor Tracy Brabin on the other.

    The Yorkshire Post (paywall) reports:

    Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has refused to guarantee that the planned West Yorkshire mass transit system will include a tram network.

    It adds:

    It comes after The Yorkshire Post revealed last year that civil servants could overrule Ms Brabin and turn the mass transit system into a bus network, with West Yorkshire Combined Authority asked to set out an alternative business case for buses. The Department for Transport is the ultimate body which will sign off the plans for the scheme.

    It also comes after the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA), led by Brabin, refused to disclose a “peer review” of the scheme by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) on the grounds that it would damage public confidence in the scheme.

    The Yorkshire Post article shows Alexander not only repeatedly refusing to commit to the trams that Brabin and Leeds MP Reeves have been pushing for but also refusing to back Reeves’ insistence that “mass transit does not mean a few better buses”:

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  • Carry on emitting

    Highways magazine has a story about council directors’ body ADEPT advising members to avoid using “Net Zero” in communications, which I find interesting as have never liked the phrase.

    It reports:

    A new 10-point guide from council chiefs to help the public sector communicate more effectively about climate change suggests officers should avoid using common phrases like ‘net zero’ – despite the fact that the Government department involved in tackling the issue is itself called the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

    An Introduction to Talking Climate was produced by council directors’ body ADEPT and Yorkshire & Humber Climate Commission and is based on ‘quantitative and qualitative research, surveying over 7,000 people and using focus groups to draw out strategic implications for policy and communication’.

    The document is based on what are perceived to be the best ways to communicate with people and the struggle ‘to frame messages in ways that resonate with people’s everyday lives’.

    Included in this list is net zero. The guide states: ‘Don’t use it in isolation or as shorthand; it’s a technical term and isn’t well understood.’

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  • Even less committed to road safety

    National Highways has effectively confirmed that it will halve the budget of its Driving for Better business campaign, which aims to reduce work‑related road risk.

    Fleet News has reported that:

    Fleet News understands that details around the future funding of the road safety programme are included in a draft business plan submitted by National Highways in response to the Government’s draft Road Investment Strategy (RIS).

    Sources suggest its annual budget will be halved from around £750,000 to £375,000 for the next financial year (2026/27).

    It notes that:

    Asked about the future of the Driving for Better Business campaign by Fleet News, National Highways wouldn’t be drawn on specifics, but said it remained “committed” to the programme.

    A National Highways spokesperson added: “National Highways funding for this programme continues, but we are reviewing as part of developing our plans for the next ‘road period’.

    “As with all our work, we regularly review to ensure we deliver the best value for taxpayer.”

    The non-denial, the use of the word “committed”, and the reference to “the best value for taxpayer” (sic) all provide a strong indication that the story is true.

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  • Exclusive: Alexander cut back road safety plan

    The transport secretary watered down National Highways’ plan to reduce deaths and serious injuries on its network, despite telling MPs that the plan set out “a series of safety improvements” that her department had required the company to deliver.

    Heidi Alexander also misled MPs on the Transport Committee last April by presenting the plan as complete when it was still in draft form, despite the year that it covered already having begun.

    In fact, she subsequently directed National Highways to remove one action from its 2025-26 Safety Action Plan, while the company shortened two others, for reasons that it has declined to explain.

    According to the plan, all three actions had the “expected impact” of reducing killed and seriously injured (KSI) casualties at a time when National Highways was expected to miss its official casualty reduction target.

    The obvious implication of this is that watering down the plan will have led to more KSI casualties than if it had been implemented in full.

    The revelations, which stem from my Freedom of Information (FOI) Act requests and subsequent complaints to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), raise new questions about transparency at the Department for Transport (DfT), National Highways, and its regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR).

    I first became aware of the plan following Alexander’s appearance before the Commons Transport Committee on 23 April last year, at a time when National Highways should already have begun to implement it.

    Asked by Liberal Democrat MP Steff Aquarone whether she was “minded to make a specific direction” to the company, which was expected to miss its December 2025 KSI reduction target, she replied:

    We have been clear with National Highways that it must deliver a series of safety improvements. It has set that out in its safety action plan for 2025‑26. 

    I then asked the DfT, National Highways and the ORR for the plan under FOI but all refused, claiming that it was exempt from disclosure as it was due to be published as part of National Highways’ delivery plan for the year. A watered down version of the plan was indeed published in July as Annex 7 to the delivery plan.

    The ICO has now issued a decision notice on my complaint about the ORR, which discloses that at the time of my FOI request the ORR held various “draft” versions of the safety action plan:

    ORR says that these “drafts included the final version” of the Interim Period Delivery Plan. National Highways (NH) submitted this to the Secretary of State for approval prior to publication and delivery.

    However, ORR says that in its approval, the Secretary of State removed from the Safety Action Plan 2025-2026 one action that NH had previously proposed.

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