Transport Insights

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

Author

Chris Ames

  • Gaslighting the public about a target that doesn’t exist

    The Department for Transport has released a written version of what it called Debrief Drop In Sessions that took place just after the Road Investment Strategy was released last month, including a sort of explanation as to why National Highways will be expected to do so little to improve safety.

    It follows comments by a senior National Highways official last month, in which he admitted that the company had not bothered with its target for the last (2020-25) RIS, because it depended on matters outside its control.

    As I have pointed out, what is described in the RIS as a “KPI Target” is not a target at all, but a requirement that it at least try to meet a level of casualty reduction:

    National Highways must demonstrate it has done all it reasonably can to achieve a 7.5% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI) on the SRN by the end of 2031, based on the 2022-24 baseline.

    It’s worth pointing out that transport secretary Heidi Alexander misrepresented this in her introduction to RIS 3, where she referred to:

    setting National Highways a target to achieve a 7.5% reduction

    One stakeholder at a Debrief Drop-in asked:

    Why is the safety target so unambitious, given previously the target was for zero harm by 2040?

    The answer goes back to the idea that National Highways can only control what it can control:

    (more…)

  • Could Khan disrupt the disruptors?

    Local Transport Today/TransportXtra reports mounting policy and regulatory tensions between the government and Transport for London (TfL) under mayor Sadiq Khan over the commercial rollout of driverless taxis in the capital, currently being trialled.

    It says that while the Government is fast-tracking a new permitting scheme to launch services this year, TfL has warned that no current autonomous vehicle meets its strict licensing standards for carrying fare-paying passengers.

    It adds:

    Ironically the situation could see Khan in direct dispute with his former Deputy Mayor for Transport Heidi Alexander- now Transport Secretary. Alexander held the position from May 2018 to December 2021. In this capacity, she was also Deputy Chair of the TfL board.

    The report frames the friction as between TfL describing robotaxis as “unproven” and ministers like Alexander and roads minister Simon Lightwood, who have championed the technology as a way to “lead the world”, create new jobs and enhance transport provision.

    Leading the world by doing something that is already prevalent elsewhere in that world is almost as dodgy a claim as creating new jobs, but how might robotaxis enhance transport provision?

    Possibly by reducing the costs through putting people out of work, but the question for both service provision and safety is, are the robotaxis to be additional to or instead of current transport forms?

    LTT/TransportXtra notes:

    (more…)

  • Lightwood happy with inadequate smart motorway safety provision

    The roads minister has again resisted scrutiny over the provision of emergency areas on smart motorways, implicitly admitting that they do not meet the spacing standard to which the previous government said it agreed in principle.

    As I have reported, the government has broken a pledge to consider adding further emergency areas under the new road investment strategy.

    But, faced with parliamentary questions over current spacing levels, Simon Lightwood has continued to obfuscate, relying on a definition of “places to stop in an emergency” that includes locations other than designated emergency areas.

    Having deployed this definition once to sidestep a question from Rotherham MP Sarah Champion about the average distance between emergency areas, Lightwood simply refused to answer a follow-up from her that explicitly excluded other places to stop:

    what is the current average distance between dedicated emergency refuge areas, excluding slip roads and junctions, on All Lane Running Smart Motorways.

    Lightwood replied:

    My previous answer on 27 April 2026 set out that the average distance between places to stop in an emergency is now less than a mile (around 0.9 miles). Design standard GD301 sets out the new spacing standard (around 3/4 mile where feasible and 1 mile maximum) and defines what a place of relative safety is. The document can be found at: GD 301 – Smart motorways.

    This obstructive and disingenuous answer not only evades the point about dedicated emergency areas but includes a crass non sequitur switch between the definitions of “places to stop in an emergency” and “a place of relative safety”.

    The point remains that neither definition is what the last government signed up to in principle in 2022 following a recommendation from the Transport Committee:

    The Department and National Highways should retrofit emergency refuge areas to existing all-lane running motorways to make them a maximum of 1,500 metres apart, decreasing to every 1,000 metres (0.75 miles) where physically possible.

    (more…)

  • Are Heathrow owners jumping ship over third runway?

    It looks as if plans to expand Heathrow Airport in a climate emergency may be a dead duck – especially if their main backer in government – chancellor Rachel Reeves – is ousted.

    The FT reports that:

    A Chinese sovereign wealth fund is considering a sale of its stake in Heathrow airport partly over concerns about the rising cost of developing a third runway at the London hub.

    The Chinese Investment Corporation, which is backed by Beijing, has put its 10 per cent stake in Heathrow on “active watch” and is mulling a sale, two people with knowledge of its thinking said.

    The FT adds that CIC is concerned that commercial aspects of the airport, including the steep costs, undermine the business case for expanding the airport and that airlines have raised similar concerns, warning that the costs could be off-putting to carriers and that the total bill for the project, which includes moving part of the M25, may be far higher than currently forecast.

    In response, a Heathrow spokesperson said:

    The costs for expanding the airport have been reviewed by the CAA and their independent experts have determined they are credible.

    However, writing on LinkedIn, Alex Chapman of the New Economics Foundation noted that the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) had recently commissioned an independent report that showed the true cost of the scheme is in the range of £33bn-£52bn, excluding public transport improvements.

    He wrote:

    that’s a very big caveat. Years ago, TFL estimated the public transport improvements required to support the scheme would run to several billions. Uprate that to today’s money and the scheme costs are *beyond HS2 levels*.

    The government has clearly stated that any such costs must come “at no cost to the taxpayer”. So the net private cost of the scheme is even higher than the stated range.

    (more…)

  • Harris gets delayed rebuke for gaslighting MPs

    Back on the subject of National Highways’ disastrous tree planting on its A14 scheme, the transport secretary has publicly rebuked the company for inaccurate evidence it gave to a Commons committee about who was a paying to (try to) put it right.

    Looking back at the evidence given by its then chief executive, Nick Harris, and his subsequent non apology shows quite how arrogant the company – or at least Harris – is.

    Here’s the original exchange:

    Olivia Blake: I just want to pick up on what all this has cost in terms of the A14. In particular, what has so far been spent on putting this issue right? Going forward, what are the estimated costs of keeping on putting it right, if that makes sense?
    Nick Harris: On the planting, that is a commercial conversation with the contractors. They have not met the quality standards, so that planting is at their cost.
    Chair: Just to clarify, that falls on them, not the public purse.
    Nick Harris: That falls on them, yes.
    Olivia Blake: Is that true for all the trees that you have?
    Nick Harris: It depends on how they have been established. For example, I mentioned earlier the issue of ash dieback. That is a cost that falls on us because that is our estate to manage.
    Olivia Blake: So you are doing good contract management, in your opinion.
    Nick Harris: We are doing good contract management. We are always seeking to improve how we manage our contractors. It is our responsibility.

    Of course, the company was not doing good contract management. In a subsequent letter to the chair, Toby Perkins MP, Harris said he wanted to clarify – not correct – his evidence:

    To date, National Highways has funded the replanting from existing project funds and contingencies, meaning this was absorbed in existing National Highways funding. Whilst we did not request additional funding, the costs have been met by National Highways from public funds, so I am keen to correct any misunderstanding of my evidence.

    Not a whiff of contrition, just a suggestion that his entirely clear but wholly inaccurate previous statement had been misunderstood.

    Perkins was decidedly unimpressed, despite an assurance from National Highways that “it was not Mr Harris’ intention to mislead the Committee”. In a letter to transport secretary Heidi Alexander in December, he wrote:

    (more…)

  • All change on local transport funding

    A parliamentary answer from a transport minister sets out the distribution of local transport funding through mayoral and other transport authorities over the next few years – and proves to be a portal into a previously unannounced new framework for local transport funding.

    Labour MP Julia Buckley asked:

    of the £21 billion of new local transport funding announced across the Comprehensive Spending Review period, how much funding is allocated to (a) Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities, (b) Mayoral Strategic Authorities, and (c) local councils not within a combined authority.

    I think the answer from Lilian Greenwood is best broken down:

    Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities will receive c£7.7bn of transport funding through their integrated settlement over the Spending Review period from 2026/27 to 2029/30 (to 2028/29 for Resource Funding).

    Mayoral Strategic Authorities with a mayor in place will receive c£4bn of transport funding through the Mayoral Transport Fund over the same period.

    So far so good. Nearly £12bn of the £21bn is to go to the two top levels of existing mayoral authorities. Then:

    All other local transport authorities will receive c£9.6bn of local transport funding over the Spending Review period, via the Integrated Transport Fund and Bus Services Fund.

    This includes c£1.2bn for Foundation Strategic Authorities (combined authorities without an elected mayor) and c£2.9bn for local authorities that are part of the Devolution Priority Programme and are due to be established as Mayoral Transport Authorities.

    The first confusing bit is that while we know which authorities are part of the Devolution Priority Programme, no-one knows how many foundation strategic authorities there will be.

    The other really confusing thing is that the Department for Transport (DfT) has not announced publicly that it has created an Integrated Transport Fund, but only said this to local transport authorities.

    As it says in this memorandum of understanding between the DfT and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Unitary Authority:

    (more…)

  • West Yorkshire workforce proves highly mobile

    The shambles that is West Yorkshire mass transit continues with the departure of another top transport official at the region’s combined authority and “the Cabinet minister in charge of devolution” apparently joining in the row about whether it will be trams.

    Three years after being appointed as West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s first executive director for transport “in a move to bolster the top team”, Simon Warburton is following mass transit director Mike Birch out the door. He wrote on LinkedIn:

    … with a strong team in place to deliver on the Mayor’s vision for a modern transport system in the region, including mass transit and a franchised bus system, I have decided to move on to pursue the next stage in my career.

    Meanwhile, the Yorkshire Post which has chronicled the different views of government ministers and West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin, quotes communities secretary Steve Reed as saying that “it is up to the people of Leeds” whether they want to spend regional funding on a tram system for West Yorkshire.

    I’m not so sure. For a start, as Reed acknowledged, West Yorkshire is more than just Leeds, and the region’s mass transit scheme also includes adjacent Bradford.

    (more…)

  • Not NEAR enough

    Roads minister Simon Lightwood is clearly determined never to give a straight answer to a straight question, particularly when it comes to the lack of safety of smart motorways, and his latest evasion is to sidestep an MP’s question on emergency refuge areas.

    As I have written, with Department for Transport (DfT) going back on a pledge to consider improving the spacing of emergency areas, Sarah Champion MP has been asking parliamentary questions about where this leaves smart motorway safety.

    With the DfT signalling that it has allowed National Highways to kick the issue into the long grass, Champion’s latest question was:

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what is the current average distance between emergency refuge areas on All Lane Running Smart Motorways.

    Lightwood being Lightwood, he answered a different question:

    (more…)

  • Why did council greenlight transatlantic traffic lights?

    TransportXtra has a fascinating story about a Scottish road authority being very untransparent over the installation of what appear to be wholly unnecessary traffic lights on a historic bridge, “including whether the ostensibly operational decision was, in fact, a political one”.

    Carlton Reid, an award-winning reporter on transport, particularly the sustainable kind, writes:

    Preliminary work has started on the installation of traffic lights beside the scenic Clachan Bridge on Scotland’s Argyll coast. Known since the early 1800s as the “Bridge over the Atlantic”, the 234-year-old crossing to the Isle of Seil attracts visitors eager to boast of their trans-oceanic journey. However, there are fears that motorists given the green light will soon act aggressively towards pedestrians on what is a much-photographed landmark.

    The installation of traffic lights at such a sensitive heritage site makes little sense to locals and has been described as a “1980s-style intervention” by an experienced former town planner. This place-making expert adds that the council has also ignored current guidelines on transport hierarchies.

    “Somebody in a car or a bus or a lorry, [will think], ‘I’ve now got the green light, there’s nobody stopping me’,” said Grant Baxter of Fife, who has spent 30 years as a chartered planner in Scottish local government.

    It is indeed a much-photographed landmark and I was there with my family in 2021, while staying in Oban.

    Reid adds:

    (more…)

  • Should National Highways have been in the dock?

    I still have very mixed feelings about the conviction of Barry O’Sullivan for causing the death of Pulvinder Dhillon by careless driving on the M4 after “smart motorway” technology failed but it is a relief that he will not be going to prison.

    O’Sullivan, who was convicted in February, was given a suspended sentence on Friday at Reading Crown Court.

    An appropriately balanced report from the BBC includes this:

    Investigating officer Det Sgt Mark Dunne has released a statement saying Thames Valley Police’s thoughts are with the victim’s friends and family.

    He adds: “Although the detection system on the smart motorway was not functioning at the time, other drivers saw the stranded Nissan vehicle and took the necessary evasive action, and we received a number of 999 calls alerting us to the break down in a live lane,” he says.

    We should remember that while Pulvinder Dhillon lost her life, she was not the only victim; O’Sullivan was also seriously injured and his barrister says he cannot walk more than 10 metres without becoming breathless.

    The report also includes a quote from campaigner Claire Mercer, whose husband and another man were killed in a crash on a smart motorway section of the M1 in 2019:

    Being so dependent on technology in an already dangerous environment, it’s just making it much, much more dangerous.

    The report covers O’Sullivan’s criticisms of National Highways and the police, alongside statement the company released after O’Sullivan was convicted:

    (more…)

Subscribe

Subscribe to get our the latest stories in your inbox.