The Freewheeling Podcast

How much of the Bee Network's success is franchising, and how much is just money? In today's Interchat with Vernon Everett, Transport Commissioner for Greater Manchester and chair of Transport for Wales, we get his answer, along with the numbers behind it: reliability up from 65% to over 80%, ridership up 30% in the first franchised area, and eight commuter rail lines joining the network from the end of 2026. Vernon is candid that franchising is probably not for everybody. But if you want genuine integration across every mode, he argues, you cannot do it without control of the buses and the fare revenue. This is the first Interchat recorded by Katie English, my Freewheeling associate. Interchats are a series of short conversations recorded on the conference floor at Interchange 26 in Manchester.

What has to change inside government before anything changes on the street? In today's Interchat with Ben Plowden, Chief Executive of Campaign for Better Transport, we discuss the machinery of government, why combined authorities should never be treated as a single category and the local transport authorities now spending 70% of their budgets on social care. We also discuss my own despair about the climate crisis - and Ben's rather more useful answer to it. Interchats are a series of short conversations recorded on the conference floor at Interchange 26 in Manchester.

David Skaith, the Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, joins me to discuss the transformative impact of devolution on local governance. He emphasises the critical role of transport in enabling economic growth, health, and skills of a region with distinct challenges. In our conversation, Skaith highlights the need for significant investment in bus services and active travel, noting a 50% decline in bus miles over 10 years. I always enjoy talking to this generation of Mayors, as - far more than central Government - they understand that transport is not a ‘thing’ on its own: it is an essential enabler of a healthy, prosperous society. This Interchat is a great example. Interchats are a series of short conversations recorded on the conference floor at Interchange 26 in Manchester.

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.

Last month, I hosted a special webinar for Transport Focus on Customer Experience in GBR. Specifically, what will it look like if GBR is a customer experience disaster - and how do we stop that happening? The specific goal was to avoid that happening by having the difficult conversations we need to have now, so we don’t need to have them then. As I was hosting it, I thought my Freewheeling Podcast listeners would love it, so here it is. I start with an interview with Linda Moir, who led customer experience at both Virgin Atlantic and London 2012. Then we have a really crunchy panel discussion with Vernon Everitt (now Commissioner of Transport for Greater Manchester) about his time at TfL, Nick Haller (who looks after Customer Experience for Europe’s best railway, Swiss Federal Railways SBB), Marie Daly (who’s already leading an integrated public sector railway at Transport for Wales), Jacqueline Starr (the rail industry’s longtime customer champion at Rail Delivery Group) and Natasha Grice (director of Transport Focus). It’s a really insightful conversation, which I wholeheartedly recommend!

There aren’t many people who’ve personally made a Metro happen. Big infrastructure products normally start with a regional or national Government drawing lines on a map. The South Wales Metro started with Mark Barry coming back from Milan and saying “we should have one of those” - and then refusing to shut up about it. Today’s episode is a fascinating account of how to make transport change happen in the real world, with powerful lessons for anyone whose role is transport change - or who just wants transport change. This is one of those episodes I particularly hope you’ll listen to.

It’s said that “success has many fathers but failure is an orphan”. Well, given the sucess of the Bee Network, Anne Marie Purcell has a very strong claim to parentage. She was Chief Transformation Officer at Transport for Greater Manchester throughout the period the Bee Network was mobilised. In this episode, we talk about the Bee Network (of course we do!) but we also talk about the templates for succesful change across all organisations. The Bee Network was Anne Marie’s first role in transport: she’s a change person first, and a transport person second. That makes for a fascinating conversation.

How on earth do you lead an organisation of 20,000 people with 16 transport modes and a £7 billion budget? Through people! That’s the clear answer of Claire Mann, Chief Operating Officer of Transport for London. In this highly personal episode, she unpacks her personal leadership style and why it is so effective. In the process, she explains why authenticity is so important, how she plans her work and describes her passion for public transport. Highly recommended! (Apologies for the sound quality in this episode; for various reasons we had to do it by phone).

Do you listen to the YIMBYPod with James O’Malley? Well, if you do, I’ve got some alarming news for you - next week, you’ll be hearing me. James O’Malley asked me to come and tell him about Mini Switzerland , the national demonstrator of Swiss-style transport integration I’m trying to will into being in the Hope Valley. Take a listen for why I believe Mini Switzerland is so key to the future of rural transport across the UK, how the Swiss have got it so right and the way I’m hoping we can learn from them. If you want to hear more from YIMBYPod, you can find it right here .

I bet, like me, you constantly hear references to what the Treasury thinks. “The Treasury” sometimes seems to be a person in its own right, with its own opinions and culture. How did the Treasury form its culture? How does the Treasury work? How does the Treasury think? My guest this week, Katie-Lee English, spent a year working in the Treasury and talks to me about the things that have created the Treasury’s unique character.

Naomi Green has one of the toughest, and most exciting, jobs in transport today. The Oxford-Cambridge Corridor is a change programme on an extraordinary scale hidden in plain site. Both Oxford and Cambridge are expanding, driven by new Growth Companies. At least one - and possibly multiple - brand new towns are planned. The largest theme park in Europe is coming. A new railway is opening. And there’s so much more. All this is happening in a region with multiple county and district authorities, various bus operators and - currently - a mix of different rail operators. Somehow all this has to be stitched together into a coherent public and active travel proposition that ensures the economic potential can be delivered. The person in charge of bringing it all together is my guest this week, the Managing Director of England’s Economic Heartland: the sub-national transport body responsible for the OxCam Corridor. She joins me today to describe the nature of the challenge - and scale of the opportunity.