What is lost when the government sells its own brain?

In today's Interchat with TRL CEO Paul Campion, we discuss the privatisation of Britain's transport research laboratory and what is about to happen when autonomous vehicles arrive on London's streets.

Paul is generous about the gains from privatisation: agility, commercial discipline and the freedom to change. What went was the peer relationship with the DfT, because public sector procurement is a search for a predefined answer rather than a search for a better question.

We also discuss his real worry about autonomy, which is not that the vehicles will crash but the risks of zero-occupancy vehicles.

Interchats are a series of short conversations recorded on the conference floor at Interchange 26 in Manchester.

Some of my favourite conversations are those that bring in the perspective of someone from outside our sector and todays is a great example.

Adam Scott designs experiences for multiple sectors globally. How are we doing in transport? Where are we on his mental ranking? What do we need to learn? What are we already good at?

Spoiler alert - he doesn't feel we're at the absolute top of the league table for experience design, but the great thing is that gives us an awful lot of potential to improve!

Interchats are a series of short conversations recorded on the conference floor at Interchange 26 in Manchester.

𝗞𝗮𝘁𝘆 𝗧𝗮𝘆𝗹𝗼𝗿, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗘𝗢 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗿𝘆 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗪𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸, has worked in three different transport modes, but always for a private firm. In today’s episode, she gives a powerful defence of the role and value of the private sector in transport.

She also describes what customer-focused leadership looks like and emphasises the importance of empowerment.

Katy is clear, articulate and passionate about both the importance of customer excellence and private sector discipline in delivering it. At a time when the political climate is in the opposite direction, it’s great to hear the argument stated with such clarity.

What’s it like running the biggest integrated transport authority in the world when there’s not enough money around?

In today’s Interchat with Transport for London Commissioner Andy Lord, we discuss TfL’s role in economic growth and job creation - and the huge challenge of an ageing asset base.

Financial sustainability is hard for any organisation but when you need to keep fares low for social purposes and need to spend £1.1bn on renewing your existing asset bases, it’s incredibly hard.

In this Interchat, we discuss how TfL’s attempting to square the circle.

Interchats are a series of short conversations recorded on the conference floor at Interchange 26 in Manchester.

Michael Hill used to be a civil servant but now works on policy for the campaign group Britain Remade.

In that role, he’s trying to push through policy changes to get Britain building.

In today’s episode, we talk through the extraordinary degree of political centralisation in the UK and why this is a direct contributor to making it so hard to build new tram lines in the UK.

He gives the current Government a mid-term review and tells me the policy asks from any future new Prime Minister.

My guest this week is a transport changemaker attempting to achieve change in the most populous country on earth.

Ruchita Bansal is a transport and urban planner by background, and is now founder of SheCity.

Her research reveals the extra costs imposed on women by the transport choices of Indian leaders, and the wider impact this has on society and the Indian economy.

In today’s episode, she brings these impacts vividly to life, all set in the context of how Indian cities are designed by leaders not for citizens.

Jonathan Bray was Director of the Urban Transport Group and has spent the last year visiting suburbs all round Europe. He’s just published his findings, and it makes for a fascinating discussion.

He’s clear that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to making sustainable transport work in suburbs. Instead, it’s all about the questions cities ask and the people they invite into the room when the decisions are taken.

In today’s episode, he takes me on a tour of different examples of best practice in Europe but focuses primarily on getting the questions right.

How can we stop people playing their TikToks out loud?

You can’t say we don’t address the big policy questions on this podcast!

Nevertheless, it’s an issue that really gets to people.

So I’m joined by behavioural science expert Christian Hunt, founder of Human Risk, to figure out what we can do about it…

During the pandemic, Anna Filby was a young transport professional struggling to connect with other young transport professionals.

So she created the Young Mobility Network.

Roll forward six years, it’s been such a success that it’s now her full-time job.

She joins me to discuss the challenges facing young people in our sector, what’s changed since I was starting out in my career and what it was like creating the YMN while holding down a full time job.

We’re also joined by Alessandro Zenati, who runs the London Hub of the Young Mobility Network as a volunteer.

John Sills is an expert in Customer Experience. He’s written a book and runs The Foundation, a leading Customer Experience consultancy.

He’s worked in transport just enough to understand our world, but not enough not to be able to look in as an outsider.

Today’s episode is all about what an organisation needs to do to deliver an outstanding customer experience.

We talk quite a lot about LNER (as you’d expect!) and get into the detail of what it means for leadership and management.

With GBR coming into existence in the next few years, there isn’t a better time to be having this conversation.