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.

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.