Transport Insights

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

Author

Chris Ames

  • Fiddling while England burns

    With Andy Burnham describing Britain as “a tinderbox”, you might think the government has picked the wrong day to quit pretending it is taking action on the climate emergency.

    The DfT has announced:

    Vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, charge point operators, dealers, consumers and communities are being asked for their views on the pathway to ending sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 and ensuring all new cars and vans are zero emission by 2035, as the government today (14 August 2026) launches a consultation on the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate.

    Officially, the 2030 targets respectively for ending sails of new petrol and diesel (only) cars and non-zero emission cars by 2035 remain but when you remember that plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) will currently be 20% of the market from 2030 and this might go up to 50%, there is no point in pretending that 2030 will have any meaning.

    The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) points out that PHEVs have been found to consume five times more fuel than their manufacturers claim, which means that their real-world CO2 emissions are little better than a regular petrol car, and they cost almost twice as much to run as their manufacturers claim.

    The main problem with a (very heavy) PHEV is that you don’t have to plug it in and many users don’t.

    Colin Walker, Head of Transport at the ECIU says:

    By incentivising the industry to sell more plug-in hybrids the Government risks another ‘dieselgate’, encouraging the uptake of vehicles that burn five times more fuel, and cost almost twice as much to run, than their manufacturers claim, and cost significantly more to buy, and hundreds of pounds a year more to run, than an electric car.

    He also notes that:

    With 80% of cars made in the UK exported and with a surge of EV sales in Europe, by far and away the UK’s largest export market, the real risk our car industry faces is a repeat of the 70s and 80s, when a failure to innovate in the face of competition from abroad resulted in factory closures and mass redundancies.

    I really don’t know what Burnham is thinking, except I note that he also sacrificed the health of people in Greater Manchester by avoiding bringing in a clean air zone.

  • Road investment planning goes out the window

    I have three stories and a commentary piece in the latest issue of Local Transport Today, with the connecting theme being that neither the government nor National Highways are covering themselves in glory when it comes to planning capital spending on England’s roads.

    The main angle of a piece (also on TransportXtra) on the various reports on National Highways that get published at this time of year is that the company isn’t in the best shape to deliver an expanded renewals programme as the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS3) begins.

    National Highways must improve its governance to ensure the efficient delivery of the new Road Investment Strategy (RIS3), the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has stated.

    The regulator criticised the company for not taking full advantage of the opportunities to get ready for RIS3, “meaning there is an increased risk to delivery”, and called for it to demonstrate how it will strengthen its planning and controls to manage the higher level of funding and activity.

    A comment piece alongside this story notes the continuing movement of goalposts on what National Highways is supposed to deliver under the RIS framework, including ministers shelving two major schemes within months of the document being published.

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  • National Highways five years behind the curve on casualty reductions

    In news that will surprise no one, National Highways missed its casualty target for the 2020-25 Road Investment Strategy (RIS 2) by more than 10 percentage points.

    Considering that the target was to achieve a 50% reduction in killed and seriously injured (KSI) casualties in 2025 against a 2005-09 baseline, it means that the company also missed the RIS 1 target of a 40% cut.

    But the strategic road network did see an improvement of around 2.8% in KSIs compared to 2024, suggesting that if National Highways had made any effort to reduce casualties earlier in RIS 2 (something it has admitted not doing) there might have been fewer casualties on its network at the end of the period.

    According to RRCGB 2025: Road type and environment, published today by the DfT, there were 785 KSI casualties on SRN motorways and 1091 KSIs on SRN A roads – a total of 1,876.

    While this is around 2.8% lower than the 1,931 KSIs in 2024, it is only a cut of around 1.5% on the baseline (approximately 3,100), meaning that the total is only 39.5% down overall against the baseline, compared to 38% a year ago.

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  • More wishful thinking on West Yorks trams

    There’s pressure on Andy Burnham to allow West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin to just get on with her plans to build a tram network but, unsurprisingly, nothing has actually happened yet.

    The West Leeds Dispatch notes that:

    Campaigners in Leeds have called on new Prime Minister Andy Burnham to make a “cast iron pledge” to deliver trams across the region.

    West Yorkshire Needs a Tram campaign yesterday (Monday, 27 July) marked ‘Supertram Day’ by calling on Mr Burnham to fully fund a West Yorkshire mass transit system, 33 years after the last attempt at a city tram was approved.

    On 27 July 1993 the Leeds Supertram Act received Royal Assent, but it was scrapped less than a decade later by a Labour government citing rising costs. In the intervening time London’s Elizabeth Line was approved and built, the French city of Lyon has built eight mass transit lines, but Leeds has remained without a tram.

    Well, there’s a bit of history I didn’t know, although I lived in Leeds at the time.

    Meanwhile, the Yorkshire Post/Yorkshire Evening Post reports:

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  • Defeatism triumphs as GBR “innovation” goes forward

    You might imagine that if a train service is unreliable, you would make it more reliable, rather than scrapping or curtailing it, but not the publicly-owned Northern Rail or the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA).

    The BBC reports:

    A rail service linking two former Yorkshire City of Culture winners is to be scrapped by a train operator in a bid to tackle what it said was “poor reliability”.

    Northern plans to axe the Hull to Halifax route, which stops at Leeds and Bradford, due to regular delays which it said often ended with the service being terminated at Bradford or Leeds.

    To tackle the issue, the Hull train will now terminate at Leeds – no longer continuing on to Bradford and Halifax. Passengers wanting to travel to Hull from Bradford would instead have to change in Leeds, a spokesperson said.

    A paper to the WYCA “Weaver Network Board” last week backed the plan to curtail the service introduced in 2019 without ever asking what the cause of the delays is, or whether they can be fixed:

    The Hull–Leeds–Bradford–Halifax service has experienced poor reliability for some time. Delays occurring on either side of Leeds often affect the wider route, meaning services are regularly terminated early at Leeds or Bradford and do not reach Halifax as planned.

    There may be complex reasons why certain diagrams and timings are unrealistic on a crowded bit of the rail network, but it would be good to see the question being addressed.

    Looking at the video of the meeting, the officer presenting the paper did nothing beyond reading from it and no members asked the question, why not fix it?

    On the bright side, the plan would see the Bradford–Halifax–Huddersfield service extended to start and finish at Leeds, which I think would produce the benefit of more trains at Low Moor and Brighouse because it would use the stopping line.

    On the even brighter side, Mayor Tracy Brabin described bringing track and train together under Great British Railways – i.e. the model previously used under British Rail and widely used elsewhere – as:

    A really amazing innovation from Peter Hendy

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  • Just Justin in at DfT as Greenwood goes…again

    As I write, it seems that the only ministerial change at the Department for Transport (DfT) resulting from Andy Burnham’s arrival at No 10 (north or south) is the departure of Lilian Greenwood, to be replaced by Justin Madders – but who knows?

    Greenwood is off to the Department for Work and Pensions, having delivered the long-promised Road Safety Strategy…eventually.

    Looking at LinkedIn, there does seem to be some genuine appreciation for what she achieved as a transport minister, including from Thomas Abelman, who pointed out that she had a genuine interest and experience in transport from before her time in government, i.e. as chair of the Transport Committee.

    She was of course moved out of the DfT once before – last September – only to return almost immediately.

    I’m still not sure if this was a mistake or a change of heart.

    Madders has been the MP for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough since the general election and was previously Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Business and Trade from July 2024 until he was sacked in that same reshuffle, only to return to government 10 months later.

    I hope he knows as much about roundabouts as he does about merry-go-rounds.

    Among the ministers staying at the DfT is Simon Lightwood, presumably valued for his unparalleled skills in not being straight about anything.

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  • Did Labour make things worse at SWR?

    A parliamentary answer from (still) rail minister Peter Hendy effectively admits that nationalisation of South Western Railway (SWR) a year ago has failed to produce anything to write home about – but did it make things worse?

    Lord Patten (former Tory minister John Patten) asked His Majesty’s Government:

    what assessment they have made of the performance of South Western Railways since it entered public ownership on 25 May 2025.

    The reply from Lord Hendy started off in encouraging terms:

    The Department is closely monitoring South Western Railway’s (SWR’s) performance following its transfer into public ownership on 25 May 2025 through a range of measures, including punctuality, cancellations, and passenger experience.

    But the rest implicitly admitted that things are not going well – or at least not well enough to publicise:

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  • Labour praises Tories over £2 fare cap, admits own error

    The Department for Transport (DfT) has been so desperate to make a good news story out of the announcement that the national (England) £2 cap on bus fares will return that it has highlighted the difference between what the Tories brought in and the current £3 cap.

    The new cap is good news but it doesn’t kick in until January.

    The DfT’s s announcement states:

    The last £2 fare cap saw an estimated 30 million more journeys taken by bus in just 10 months.

    And Jason Prince, Director of the Urban Transport Group, says:

    Cheaper fares not only make bus travel more affordable but they can help to significantly drive passenger numbers

    The implication is that the increase in the fare cap that Labour brought in (compared to the Tory policy) drove passengers off the buses.

    And indeed, in November Mobilityways’ Commuter Census found that the increase in bus fares from £2 to £3 in January 2025 had a measurable impact on commuter behaviour:

    There has been a near-complete reversal of the 17% increase in bus uptake recorded between 2023 and 2024 – when the £2 fare cap was put in place (January 2024). The findings highlight just how price-sensitive commuters are when it comes to public transport – and how quickly modal shifts can occur in response to policy changes.

    The Department for Transport’s own figures from the first half of 2025 support the trend recorded in Commuter Census, showing a decline in bus patronage since the fare cap was raised. While the cap remains in place, the increase to £3 appears to have pushed many commuters back into their cars – with driving alone rising for the first time since 2022, according to Commuter Census.

    And those lower patronage figures look set to continue for the rest of the year.

    But of course, if Burnham meant to highlight the difference between himself and Starmer, he has succeeded.

  • Burnham keeps Alexander to placate drivers

    I think we can tell from Andy Burnham’s announcement late yesterday evening that Heidi Alexander will stay on as transport secretary that he doesn’t want to rock the boat in this area, which would be consistent with his time in Greater Manchester.

    For all that Burnham did in Manchester to expand and link public transport, what he avoided was taking radical action to tackle toxic air pollution – vetoing a possible charging Clean Air Zone (CAZ).

    As I have written, Manchester falsely framed measures to improve public transport as an alternative to a CAZ, where the two could (and legally should) have been run in parallel, to bring the region into compliance with the Air Quality Directive as soon as possible. The measures were not mutually exclusive; they were mutually supportive.

    With new evidence showing the effectiveness of CAZs and London’s (now expanded) ULEZ in cutting air pollution and the health problems it causes, we can only conclude that Burnham put an unwillingness to upset drivers over the health of his residents.

    And if there is one thing that characterises Alexander’s tenure as transport secretary, it’s an unwillingness to upset drivers; countless Department for Transport announcements have been directed at this group – as well as expanding air travel in a climate emergency.

    It was obvious from the outset that Louise Haigh was forced out because she took far more radical approach to transport policy and it is interesting that she is now back in government in a more powerful role than Alexander.

    Whether Alexander might be persuaded to change tack remains to be seen, but what we can see for now is that Burnham is more focused on consumerist, individualist approach to politics than seeing the bigger picture.

    One response to “Burnham keeps Alexander to placate drivers”

    1. clearlyteenage2e6308de03 avatar
      clearlyteenage2e6308de03

      It’s a shame that all the lessons learned during the 1990’s and changes in Transport Policy at the turn of the century and the positive actions taken (by BOTH major political parties) have been reversed in the early 2010s and now forgotten and ignored.

      Infrastructure (of the right sort?) has been ‘accepted’ as a priority for the economy but new Strategic Roads are not going to help the economy or the public except just after they open for a couple of months. New wind turbines, modernising the grid, getting proper hold of our water and sewage and reinvesting in the existing failing infrastructure like 97.5% of the road network, hospitals and schools would.

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  • So NEAR, but no cigar

    You might think that to have to go back and fix one emergency area (EA) on a stretch of motorway is unfortunate and two would be careless, but what would Oscar Wilde say about remedial works to four EAs on the same stretch?

    A parliamentary question from (Baroness) Caroline Pidgeon has accidentally revealed that National Highways’ National Emergency Area Retrofit (NEAR) programme has not been formally completed, because works are neededto strengthen embankments adjacent to four new emergency areas on the M1.

    It was all going so well, with the NEAR programme appearing to have been delivered on time and on budget.

    Pidgeon asked:

    … what is the final cost of the installation of new emergency areas on smart motorways; and what is the break down of costs for each relevant motorway.

    Transport minister (Lord) Peter Hendy replied:

    National Highways committed to add over 150 new emergency areas on existing All Lane Running smart motorways by the end of March 2025, prioritising locations where these would provide the greatest benefit and could be delivered within the £390 million budget. The table below sets out the number of additional emergency areas delivered on each relevant motorway section.

    On average, across the programme, an emergency area costs approximately £2.6 million to construct (pending final accounts). Individual emergency areas have varying design requirements, including topography, requirement for supporting structures, drainage, and technology, which mean they can cost less or more than the expected average to construct.

    National Highways has recently commenced work on the M1 between junctions 16 and 19 to undertake remedial works to strengthen embankments adjacent to four new emergency areas. These works are expected to be completed by August 2026. As a result, programme close-out activities have been extended and final costs for the National Emergency Area Retrofit programme are now expected to be available in Spring 2027, subject to final accounting and internal governance.

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