Almost three years to the day since the previous episode of The Freewheeling Podcast, I'm thrilled to tell you that I'll be back next week to start Season Two.

We've got a great series coming up, starting on Thursday with Daniel Knowles, author of Carmaggedon.

It's a fascinating conversation - please do join me!

My guest this week is Chris Stark, the CEO of the Climate Change Committee.

His job is to set the national carbon budget and then report to Parliament on whether we’re on track to hit net zero.

Earlier this year, his committee praised the Government for its ambition in setting targets but warned that ‘time was running out’ for the delivery plans to meet those targets.

He joins me on The Freewheeling Podcast to talk about how the carbon budgets are set, what needs to happen for surface transport to hit net zero, how the grid will cope with electric vehicles and whether the Transport Decarbonisation Plan is up to the job.

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 Industries.

In this week’s podcast, we talk about the potential of micromobility and the impact on traditional public transport. In the process, we also cover a lot of innovation theory.

Horace is one of the global leaders of the Micromobility movement, so this is a fascinating episode.

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 one of the world’s largest transport markets in the US, and the global transport policy scene.

So I do hope you enjoy this week’s episode of The Freewheeling Podcast!

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 industry, he edited The Economist‘s award-winning travel blog, Gulliver, and reported for the print edition of the paper from over 25 countries spanning 3 continents.

We discuss the rebound from Covid and dive into history to explore various historic crises and transitions.

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 bringing trains into the public sector when private sector franchisees collapsed.

We talk through the strengths and weaknesses of Williams.

Join us for a wide-ranging discussion of the potential and pitfalls of the biggest change to the railways for 30 years.

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 to others - and why all tube stations should have compass points underground.

Kate Jeffery is Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience at University College London.

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 answer some of these questions - ending with a clarion cry on the importance of localism.

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 transport.

Not many MPs make a specialism of transport at a senior level: Lilian Greenwood is one of them.

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 whether ER is right to target public transport during their protests.

After all, a lot of people in the world of public transport felt that targeting the tube or DLR somewhat missed the mark of where the problem is.

Public transport is a solution not a problem in the environmental debate, so it’s fascinating to hear how these questions are thought about by such a high-profile activist group.

Angela Hultberg is my first return guest on The Freewheeling Podcast.

Since we last spoke she has joined the UN’s Climate Champions team preparing for the COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow.

Her remit is road transportation and she joins me to talk about how the COP process works, what we can expect from the Glasgow conference and the priorities for transport decarbonisation.

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 change and how to take people with you.

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 Metro, funding it through farmland and the role of Mayors in the modern world.

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 everything.

In a conversation rich in anecdote and example, Rory gives the transport industry the benefit of decades of accumulated wisdom in the science of thinking.

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 momentous announcement.

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 to innovation in transport and what needs to change.

(We also learn where on earth he got the name River…)

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.

Andrew Haines has a big task ahead of him.

As well as leading Network Rail, he also has to create a completely new public body to run Britain’s railways.

The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail outlined the creation of a new ‘fat controller’ organisation to manage the railways on behalf of customers, but the current CEO of Network Rail has the job of turning that vision into reality.

He joins me to discuss how he’s going to go about it and what good looks like for GBR.

I’m joined on The Freewheeling Podcast this week by Andrew Adonis.

One of the most influential politicians of his era, Andrew Adonis served as education minister, transport secretary and head of policy for Tony Blair. 

He’s best known as the father of HS2 but is also widely seen as one of the few transport secretaries to actually care about the sector.

Andrew talks openly about what it takes to succeed as a minister and explains frankly why most ministers achieve nothing and are quickly forgotten. 

Andrew Adonis is on Twitter at @andrew_adonis

Alex Hornby is one of the leading bus managers of his generation.

As CEO of Transdev, he has created iconic local brands, a sense of possibility - and no shortage of cheesy press stunts.

He joins me on The Freewheeling Podcast to tell us what he knows now that he wished he’d known when he started out, what it takes to run a bus company… and whether he got any stick for inventing the slogan “clean, safe and ready to go” when the Prime Minister was telling us not to travel.

Alex brings his passion for better buses to an energetic and enthusiastic discussion, infused by his trademark optimism.

Alex Hornby is on Twitter at @alextransdev

I’m joined on The Freewheeling Podcast this week by Simon Calder, Travel Editor of The Independent.

No-one knows transport better than Simon; having been watching over the sector since 1994. He’s met every transport secretary since I was a schoolboy and is passionate about bringing the joys of travel to as many people as possible.

We talk about the best transport secretaries of the last quarter-century, the weaknesses of the current Government and ponder the future of transport as we emerge from the pandemic.

Simon brings his trademark enthusiasm to a lively and wide-ranging discussion.

Simon Calder is on Twitter at @simoncalder

This introductory trailer tells you a little bit about why The Freewheeling Podcast exists, what I'm hoping to achieve and who I'll be talking to in the first few episodes.

Professor Jillian Anable, of the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds, is an expert on the future of motor transport.

She also has something of a track record as a forecaster: she accurately saw the trend towards SUVs coming, and fears they will be fatal to Britain’s chances of hitting its carbon targets.

She tells me she is an ‘inspirational pessimist’, as we talk about what the future holds and what needs to be done.

Do join us for a fascinating discussion.

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 to miss.

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 Freewheeling Podcast to talk through a remarkable story.

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 industry is heading in the wrong direction with the dash to electrify. In The Freewheeling Podcast, he tells me why we should stop, think and focus on hydrogen.

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 wasn’t such a good example of it.

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 future of the bus sector but worried that the Williams-Shapps Review takes the rail industry in completely the wrong direction.

In this discussion, she doesn’t hold back - talking candidly about her concerns for the future of rail - and reasons for optimism for the future of bus.

Daniel Knowles is the Midwest Editor of The Economist. But when he spoke to me from Chicago, it was not about US politics but about cars.

His book Carmaggedon describes in acute, forensic detail why cars make life worse. Not just for people who don’t use them, but for people who do - and for the billions of people who currently don’t but wish they did.

His book is polemical in tone and, in this week’s edition, he tells me why cars really do make life worse for everyone and how we got here.

With a global perspective covering four continents, Daniel Knowles brings a unique view and rigorous research to a critical question: what are we going to do about it?

Vernon Everitt is Commissioner for Greater Manchester at a time of rapid (transformational?) change.

Manchester is the UK’s pioneer for re-regulating buses as part of a wider integrated Bee Network, which is intended to bring together buses, bikes, trains and trams.

On this week’s Freewheeling Podcast, we talk about how much has been done, what’s left to do, why Manchester has been able to move at such pace and whether there are obstacles holding them back.

We start by finding out if the Bee Network is simply a product of Vernon’s favourite colour being yellow…

Leila Zegna is co-founder and Partner of Kindred Capital, one of the top venture capital firms in the UK. In her day job, she backs entrepreneurs with small startups but huge ambitions. She is also a Trustee of Boston Children’s Hospital and spent most of her career in Silicon Valley. So she has a great perspective on what corporates can learn from startups and the differences between British and American business culture.

In this episode of The Freewheeling Podcast she tells me about the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs, what an established safety-critical business can learn from the tech sector and why British business culture needs more self-belief in the potential for change.

She also has a warning: the world is faster and more unpredictable than ever and businesses of all sizes need to be ready to respond.

This week I’m joined by a council officer. But no ordinary council officer. Colin Knight is doing something extraordinary: working with scientists and automotive engineers to develop an entirely new form of transport.

When challenged by his political masters to reduce the costs of a new tram network for Coventry, Colin realised that the only way to achieve a step-change was to reinvent trams from the ground up. Literally. He has formed a team that has reinvented the both tracks and vehicles.

He joins me on The Freewheeling Podcast to tell me what they’ve done, why they’ve done it and what will happen next with the monumentally ambitious project known as Very Light Rail.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen is the Chief Executive of Ruter, the public transport authority for the Norwegian capital Oslo.

He has a vision: for a data-driven public transport network so responsive to user needs that it replicates the freedom offered by the private car.

This may sound unachievable but Ruter has a track record. They have nearly achieved total decarbonisation of their vehicle fleet (four years’ ahead of schedule) and Oslo is one of the only cities on earth to be within touching distance of Vision Zero (meaning no deaths on the transport network at all - including the roads).

Bernt is passionate about sustainability and convinced that we cannot continue with public transport as usual in the face of the climate crisis.

Do join me for a fascinating, inspirational but also pragmatic conversation about the future.

Pete Dyson is the author of Transport for Humans, a book with influential readers. Louise Haigh took it out of the House of Commons library and enjoyed it.

I’m not surprised: Transport for Humans is essential for anyone involved in the transport and mobility sector. In our discussion, Pete explains why our focus on rigid metrics risks distracting us from the things that users most care about, and how groupthink threatens the quality of our decision-making.

He’s passionate that we need to consider more than just punctuality, and believes behavioural science has much more to offer the transport sector than we realise.

Shin-pei Tsay has had what you would call a varied career in transport. She's worked in advocacy organisations, as an exec in Uber and now leads innovation in the City of Boston.

In a wide-ranging conversation, we discuss how to make change happen, how to deliver innovation within big organisations and the importance of inclusivity of wider society.

After what felt like a lifetime of waiting, we finally found out yesterday what was in the budget.

This morning, I got together with Sir Michael Holden (former Chief Executive of Directly Operated Railways, the Government’s own train company) to discuss what it means.

Join us for a wide-ranging discussion of the potential and pitfalls of this landmark first budget by a Labour chancellor for 14 years.

When Rishi Sunak stood up in a disused railway station in Manchester to announce the cancellation of HS2 to Manchester, he created something of a problem.

One of the world’s most expensive railways is still being built, but will it be useful? The trains are too long for the platforms in Manchester, Birmingham will have too many platforms and Euston too few. Excess track capacity in the south will give way to insufficient in the north.

In summary, it’s a mess.

One person who thinks he knows how to fix the mess is Chris Gibb, who - amongst other jobs - used to run Virgin West Coast, the vary railway HS2 was designed to replicate.

On this week’s edition of The Freewheeling Podcast, we chat railways in general for a while and then get into the detail of - precisely - how we can make the best of what we’ve got.

Laura Hadzik is one of the UK’s pre-eminent specialists in Transport Law.

In this week’s edition of The Freewheeling Podcast, she tells me about the dangers of badly-drafted legislation and advises how to maintain compliance while also promoting innovation.

Laura isn’t only a lawyer, however. Despite being a proud Mancunian, she’s a Freeman of the City of London and a member of the Worshipful Company of Carmen. Puzzled? Listen on to find out more…

What should the new Government do about transport?

Big question: so the Labour party asked an independent group of experts to come up with the answer. Their report, which was published in September, is all-encompassing.

Allan Cook, former Chair of HS2, joins me to talk about their recommendations and why it’s so crucial for the Government to take them forward

This week’s conversation is with a woman who has broken multiple glass ceilings. The worlds of investment, automotive and Turkish business are all overwhelmingly male-dominated, but Ahu Serter is one of the most respected figures in all of them.

She is the founder of Fark Labs, a business attempting - as she puts it - to create the future of the world through combining startups and corporate entrepreneurship. She calls it the “Minecraft mentality”, after the video game in which a larger world is created through multiple players building multiple small worlds.

She talks to me about her inspiration, her sense of purpose and her work supporting women in entrepreneurship.

A few months ago, I did a light-hearted LinkedIn post, giving out “Olympic” medals to my favourite European railways.

Transport Strategy Consultant Laura Wright was immediately on my case, challenging my (somewhat subjective) rankings.

So I thought we should debate it in your presence.

In this episode we discuss our best (and most memorable - not always the same thing!) international train journeys and then have an informal chat on which national railways are the best.

Maria Hofberg’s rail company doesn’t just have satisfied customers: it has the most satisfied customers in Sweden. Not just the most satisfied rail customers: the most satisfied customers of any transport firm in the Swedish Quality Index, beating buses, airlines and ferry firms.

The company in question is VR Snabbtåg and Maria is Chief Commercial Officer.

She joins me on The Freewheeling Podcast to talk about customers, quality, the importance of getting the basics right and the necessity for direct, personal conversations with users.

Oh, and they’re already at 160% of pre-Covid income, so all this focus on quality is working.

Politics tends to focus on what is to be done, but none of it matters if it doesn't actually happen.

We've been living through a crisis of governance recently. Government has become centralised, micro-managing and subject to constant, wild oscillations of policy.

Is this as good as it gets? The Future Governance Forum was set up to make sure it isn't.

Grace Wyld is Head of Policy and Programmes and she joins me to talk about Missions, Devolution and how good Government needs to mean a transformation in how Government works.

Karen Vancluysen has an infectious passion for sustainable transport and urban mobility. As Secretary General of POLIS, she runs a network of over 100 European cities and regions, all innovating to accelerate the transition to more sustainable mobility.

In today’s episode, we chat about the places that are leading the charge, and the challenges of the growth of populism. She gives advice to political leaders aspiring to make change happen and is inspirational on what has been done - and what more needs to happen.

We end with her recommended mobility ‘grand tour’ of Europe, to see what’s already been achieved on the ground.

It’s a great start to Season 3!

Welcome back to The Freewheeling Podcast, everyone.