Transport Insights

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

Author

Chris Ames

  • Private LTC is a bottomless pit of public funding

    The Department for Transport (DfT) has admitted giving the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) another £174m of public money, despite claims that the allocation in the Autumn Budget was the last, bringing total public funding for the privately funded scheme to £3.1bn.

    The Guardian reports:

    The £174m of extra cash will be used to fund public works on both sides of the tunnel and will be found from existing budgets, the Department for Transport (DfT) said.

    The extra funding was spotted by Transport Action Network (TAN), which noted the gap between the £1.48bn announced up to and including the Autumn Budget and the £1.66bn in the (March) Road Investment Strategy.

    The DfT also told the Guardian:

    We have committed £3.1bn to the Lower Thames Crossing to date, including £891m to complete the publicly funded works needed to unlock private investment.

    This is around £100m more than the previously estimated £3bn, which includes around £1.5bn already spent. It’s subject to rounding and was probably a bit under £3bn and is now a bit over £3.1bn.

    Becca Lush of TAN told the Guardian:

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  • Motor trade underwhelmed by its own achievements

    There’s a very strong glass half-full, glass half-empty element to the latest figures on the UK’s new car market from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), with registrations rising 7.1% and battery electric vehicles (BEVs) taking a 27.3% share of the market.

    The SMMT described the overall figure of 160,662 units as the strongest May performance since before the pandemic, with private buyer demand rising 17.2% “as market reinvigorated by wider choice and competitive deals”.

    Overall, this means more cars on the road and, despite the increased share of the market taken by BEVs, the sale of 66,223 petrol vehicles was only 7.1% down year on year and the 7,662 diesel cars was only 2.2% down. These vehicles will be on the road, adding to pollution and climate change, for at least a decade.

    The SMMT continues to grumble about the Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate, claiming that the 27.3% market share achieved by BEVs was still “short of mandated 33% target”.

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  • Stuck in the past

    Rail magazine has an interesting story about new rail services that should be able to run on electrified (overhead) lines instead partly running on diesel because the very, very old infrastructure cannot cope with the additional demand for power.

    Avanti West Coast has confirmed that it’s running one of its new additional Liverpool services using diesel traction under the wires for a large part of the route because of power supply issues between Weaver junction and Crewe.

    Rail explains that the new May timetable includes two additional services to and from Liverpool, for which Avanti is using a bi-mode Class 805 Evero set, which can run on diesel or electric power.

    The trains are reported to be running from Runcorn to Lichfield Trent Valley under diesel power, with the trains switching to electric traction from Lichfield to Euston.

    The service from London to Liverpool is said to be unaffected and can use electric traction.

    Rail explains the problem:

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  • Actively working on solutions that could improve safety

    A Tory council leader and a Labour metro mayor have formed an unholy alliance to bring the scrapped A1 Morpeth to Ellingham scheme back from the dead, using an unfortunate, but unrepresentative, rash of fatalities as a pretext.

    I have written extensively on this blog about how the Tory government secretly shelved the scheme, which was then officially cancelled by Labour on cost grounds.

    At the time of the cancellation, it was expected that the scheme could cost more than half a billion pounds and National Highways had already sunk £70m into it.

    Now, the BBC reports:

    Calls for safety improvements on the A1 in Northumberland have intensified after five people died in two major incidents just nine days apart.

    It’s a classic media framing: there have been two fatal incidents in close succession, therefore something must be done. But it looks as if Northumberland County Council leader Glen Sanderson and North East mayor Kim McGuinness are jumping on the safety issue to get capacity on the route increased though dualling.

    They have written transport secretary Heidi Alexander to urge the need for “action to avoid further fatalities on the road” but as the council’s press release makes clear

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  • Labour mayor digs in against franchising

    It looks as if West of England metro mayor Helen Godwin is firmly opposed to bus franchising in the region and does not want the public to know how strong the case is or what the costs might be.

    The Bristol Post reports:

    Campaigners calling for bus services in Bristol and the West of England to be brought back under public control say those in charge of the region are keeping a report into the idea out of the public domain.

    …with campaigners saying one reason could be because it revealed that franchising the bus services in Bristol would be achievable.

    The Post explains that last year the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) commissioned ARUP to compile a report into bus franchising, which was delivered to it in April.

    Open Government campaigner and bus franchise supporter Joseph Lloyd submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act for a copy of the report to be published, but WECA has now refused.

    WECA chiefs said releasing the report could ‘negatively impact an organisation’s commercial interests’ – which can only mean the West’s two main bus companies First and Stagecoach.

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  • Signalling claim falls victim to cancellation culture

    It’s worth looking at the Department for Transport’s press release about Britain’s biggest train operator’s services enter public ownership alongside Heidi Alexander’s written statement to Parliament, which has a bit less spin, although the detail of both is pretty unimpressive.

    Yesterday, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which includes Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick Express, transferred into public ownership, or at least its services did, because the trains themselves remain privately owned.

    The DfT press release says:

    A renationalised GTR will deliver a range of initiatives to improve performance and passenger experience under public ownership, such as doubling the number of services between Gatwick Airport and London Victoria every hour and training 110 new Travel Safe Officers to crack down on anti-social behaviour on the network.

    Alexander’s statement to Parliament also promises “doubling the number of Gatwick Express trains each hour between Gatwick Airport and London Victoria from December” as well as providing additional Great Northern off-peak services from Moorgate from December.

    It’s not a massive increase and still leaves GTR services as a whole well below pre-pandemic levels.

    Interestingly, the press release states that the nationalisation will mean:

    Upgrade signalling to reduce cancellations: Secondary signalling system between Farringdon and Blackfriars to reduce delays and boost resilience. Improvements expected to prevent over 1,000 cancellations a year.

    While Alexander’s statement promises:

    completing the automatic train operation training programme by December 2026, which will support improvements in punctuality, particularly in recovering delays during disruption

    Both are about automatic train operation (ATO) but it seems that the statement that improvements are “expected to prevent over 1,000 cancellations a year” is not something Alexander thought robust enough to put in a statement to Parliament.

    Fortunately, most people already got their news from the press release.

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  • Ministers promise action sometime as casualties continue

    The latest statistics from the Department for Transport show the country treading water on road safety, with fatalities down but serious casualties up overall.

    According to Reported road casualties in Great Britain, provisional estimates: 2025, there were an estimated:

    1,556 fatalities, a decline of 3% compared to 2024

    29,911 killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties, an increase of 4% compared to 2024

    127,870 casualties of all severities, little change compared to 2024

    The quote from a government spokesperson as reported by the Guardian should raise immediate suspicions:

    We have set an ambitious target to reduce deaths and serious injuries by 65% by 2035 and have consulted on multiple new measures, including a lower drink drive limit and a minimum learning period.

    When you proclaim your target to be “ambitious”, you are both telling people that you are trying to make a big impact and giving yourself a get out when you miss the target.

    As I commented at the time, the draft of the third Road Investment Strategy, published last summer, said:

    Progress towards a stretch target of a 50% reduction for the RIS2 period has proved challenging.

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  • Lightwood loses by a submission

    Still on the subject of Essex road widening, a bizarre exchange has taken place between a Tory MP and the roads minister about the decision by the last government to delay the start of works on the A12 widening project, with the minister telling the Tory that he cannot see “advice” given to the Tories.

    With the roads minister being Simon Lightwood, of course there is a degree of evasiveness, obstructiveness and chicanery, with the upshot being that the Tories want to show that they didn’t shelve the scheme – which Labour formally cancelled – and Lightwood wanting to suggest that they did.

    It seems to go back to a question last year from local MP Priti Patel, asking for

    an assessment of the changes in costs for the A12 widening scheme following the decision taken by the Secretary of State to pause that scheme in July 2024

    This relates to the decision by the then transport secretary, Louise Haigh, soon after Labour came to power, to put a number of large schemes into a review. The scheme was cancelled a year later.

    With Patel obviously wanting to blame the pause for the cost increase, Lightwood pointed out that the Tories had deferred the scheme in March 2024. The latest cost estimate he gave was up to £1.27bn in September 2022.

    A few questions later, Tory Greg Smith asked:

    whether a written ministerial direction, submission, or other formal decision document exists in relation to the March 2024 decision to defer the start of construction on the A12 widening scheme

    Lightwood decided to answer the question selectively:

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  • Not so Cleverly done: BBC bins balance, backs road building

    The BBC has a very poor, and quite late, report on the decision to cancel the A120 Braintree to Marks Tey dualling scheme, with no consideration of whether continuous road building is a good idea in a climate emergency, or even the only solution to a poor safety record.

    The cancellation of the scheme emerged when the Road Investment Strategy was published in March and it was removed from the pipeline of future works.

    Ministers say the project is no longer affordable, but some of those who live, work and travel on the trunk road are angered by the decision and fear for its future sustainability.

    Having admitted that it may only be “some” people who are angered by the decision, the BBC then devotes its article exclusively to those views.

    The road does appear to have an appalling safety record, approximately one fatality a year this century but:

    Average speed cameras were installed between Braintree and Marks Tey in 2025 and a new 50mph (80km/h) limit was enforced for most of the route.

    While it’s too early to tell what the impact of this might be, there will be statistics. But the BBC doesn’t need statistics, when it has subjective claims to rely on:

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  • Arterio rollout happening less slowly after nationalisation

    The Department for Transport’s press release celebrating a year since South Western Railway was nationalised highlights some genuine improvements, but the DfT can never resist spoiling a good story with exaggeration.

    To celebrate the milestone, the Rail Minister Lord Peter Hendy unveiled a GBR-branded train – an Arterio operated by SWR at London Waterloo station.

    He must have had a big veil.

    I can tell it was a 701 as it says 701 on the front. But the main story is:

    Thanks to public ownership, the government and SWR leadership sped up the introduction of new Arterio trains and accelerated driver training after years of delay, significantly boosting capacity and comfort for passengers across the network.

    This crucial change resulted in 39 new trains entering service since May last year. As a result, the number of seats and space on board suburban services into London Waterloo has increased by 27%, with even greater increases on other routes

    I think it is true that nationalisation cut through some of the ridiculous obstacles that delayed the introduction of the class 701 Arterios for years, but the DfT admits:

    SWR is now on track to have 50 Arterios in service

    The full fleet of 90 Arterio trains is expected to be in service by early 2027

    So we are just about half way to something that should have happened by 2019. This and other things means that the DfT is quoting from very dodgy statistics.

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