Claim OwnershipThe Freewheeling Podcast
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The Freewheeling Podcast is all about moving forwards faster.
Each week, I’ll bring you fresh voices, new ideas and unconventional thinking.
With a bias towards transport and mobility, we also span entrepreneurship and politics.
87 Episodes
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So many people have asked me how the Swiss achieve their extraordinary level of transport integration.Helmut Eichhorn runs the SwissPass Alliance, the industry body that makes Swiss public transport feel effortless. We talk through the machinery of integration: a federal legal duty to offer one ticket, shared back-end platforms for fares and information, standards with a few exceptions and a culture of operators getting in a room (with coffee) to thrash out compromises that last.He finishes off by telling me that the ultimate secret is a population and politicians who actually want it.
Johannah Randall has spent a lifetime working with stations. She led the redevelopment of Kings Cross for GNER, has worked on station planning for both HS2 and the HS2 operator and advised on station design for entirely new railways like Saudi Arabia’s Etihad Rail.Yet she’s not happy with our direction of travel on stations, if you’ll pardon the pun.She joins me to describe her concerns.
Tom Geraghty is now an expert in psychological safety at work, but he started out as an ecologist.A career focusing on how organisations actually work combined with his knowledge of ecosystems to make him realise something very important: organisations are ecosystems.So he started thinking about what it would mean to consider organisational change through the prism of stewardship of an ecosystem and it turned out to be rich soil, if you’ll pardon the pun.In today’s episode, you’ll learn what “substrate” means and why nurturing it is critical to landing innovation in your organisation.
Sandra Witzel is comparatively unusual. Millions of people in Britain are disabled, while hundreds of thousands work in transport. But there isn’t as much overlap, especially at a senior level.So today’s discussion is all about Sandra’s perspectives on how transport needs to change to avoid disabling people, and about the sector’s willingness to make those changes. Sandra’s day job is at Skedgo, so we finish off with a chat about the status of Mobility-as-a-Service (Maas), now we’re past the peak of the hype cycle.
How do we take the public with us?Actually, is that the right question? Surely, we should be asking what the public want? And what the public doesn’t yet know it wants.Our traditional models of consultation and engagement increasingly don’t work. They result in fearful officers bombarded with feedback from a hyper-engaged minority, while the typical resident is unaware that engagement is even taking place. Is there a better way? Yes! Jasmine Palardy works with local authorities to engage residents on highways schemes in a totally different way.Why shouldn’t a local authority highways consultation involve a chicken dinner?
This year, Denmark will replace all its public transport ticketing systems with a new fully pay-as-you-go digital app.Customers will get a transformationally better service; operators get a cost saving. What’s not to like?This is all being delivered by the “Rejsekort & Rejseplan”, a dedicated organisation devoted to transport ticketing and information.It is run by Tina Christensen, who tells me all about the culture change necessary to deliver this digital transformation. It’s an inspirational story for any country further behind on digital ticketing (which is almost all of them).
I’m joined by Brian O’Rourke, CEO and co-founder of CitySwift, to explore one of the only AI companies I can think of to literally start in a bus garage. We talk about joining messy, siloed data to improve reliability and efficiency, why “black box” tools fail schedulers, what COVID changed and what it’s like attempting to scale technology into a sector like transport. If you want to know what happens when two 12-year-old best friends from rural Ireland (one playing with computers, one playing with buses) team up in later life, now’s your chance to find out.
The transport sector has long operated in an environment in which it was assumed that competition was the guarantor of service quality and low prices.Those assumptions are changing, with local authorities taking control of bus services and the rail network being nationalised.Does the competition law framework still work for this new environment? I get together with economist and Head of Transport at Oxera Andy Meaney to discuss this question.
This edition looks back at the themes that emerged from the 2025 episodes of The Freewheeling Podcast.We look back at inspirational city leaders who have transformed places for the benefit of their residents (and faced death threats for doing so), we revisit the entrepreneurs building great transport products to improve journeys and we discuss the big ideas that came out of last year’s conversations.I hope you enjoy this retrospective - there’s also a preview of the next season at the end.Thank you so much for listening in 2025 - and, above all, Merry Christmas!
Data City Founder Tom Forth has been told some extraordinary reasons why the North underperforms the South.Including that it’s down to Northerners being stupid. Or drunk. He’s even read academic papers outlining these theories.In a fascinating episode of the podcast, we get into a discussion on the real reasons. They go back a thousand years but transport and our hyper-centralised way of making decisions are right at the heart of it.I really hope you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.
Jane Cole is MD of the best bus company in Britain, at least according to the judges of the UK Bus Awards. In fact, that’s not all: she also leads the best tram company in Britain, according to the judges who awarded them Tram Operator of the Year.Today’s podcast is all about change, but it’s not primarily the sexy kind of technological change that we often think of when we think about change.It’s about culture, community and people - but it’s the stuff that makes the difference between success and failure in the transport sector.Jane describes the changes she’s made happen in Blackpool Transport and how empowerment, community focus and investment have transformed the transport service in one of the most deprived towns in Europe.
Caroline Seton is the co-founder of the London bike share firm Forest.They’re in unambiguous second place to Lime, the great global bicycle behemoth - but, famously, being second makes a firm try harder.In today’s episode, we talk about the challenges of being a shared mobility firm in a municipal environment, the realities of whether cities actually want sustainable transport and the changes she would make to transport policy.Above all - more bike parking and less car parking please!
The Budget has finally been unveiled.But what does it mean for transport?In this week’s episode, I review the budget with Sir Michael Holden, former Chairman of Directly Operated Railways.We discuss the impact on railway economics (and whether there’s money for the fares freeze), whether the fuel duty increases will actually happen, the Government’s commitment to capital investment and - above all - the need for an overarching strategy.
The world’s moving faster than ever, and policy changes with dizzying pace.It was only in 2021 that the Conservatives issued the most pro-bus policy document probably ever published by a British Government.The National Bus Strategy was something of a marvel for those of us who want to see better public transport.It promised a vision of bus lanes in every town, coordinated networks and exceptional quality - all backed up by billions of pounds of new investment.Today, Leon Daniels and I look back in time to publication day and review how it’s gone since then.
Why does electrification in the UK cost so much more than in the rest of Europe?And why does it always seem to go wrong?In today’s episode, I talk to Managing Director (UK) of Furrer+Frey, the leading Swiss engineering company.We delve into the root cause of the problem: the way HM Treasury makes funding decisions, which results in a feast-famine environment in which teams are trained, mobilised, demobilised and the skills lost. Repeatedly.We also discuss whether it’s going to get any better…
1𝗙𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗽 𝗪𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗲𝘂𝘄 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝘂𝘁𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝘆𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗚𝗵𝗲𝗻𝘁, and the Alderman responsible for transport and mobility policy.He took over the portfolio and immediately set about trying to make Ghent a more beautiful, peaceful city.As I can confirm from having visited, he really succeeded! But not without a lot of difficulty, even including death threats.Today’s episode is a masterclass in the art of transport changemaking: the focus on experimentation, clear strategy and the need for urgency. He also highlights the power of storytelling, the limitations of data and highlights that, despite the death threats, the Circulation Plan helped him increase his majority at the next election.Come with me to Belgium and see just what a motivated, inspiring transport changemaker can do.
Founding a startup is hard, but it’s even harder when you’re dealing with the most painful and emotive moments in peoples’ lives.That’s what Dan Garrett decided to do when he created Farewill, now the country’s largest “Deathtech” firm.His business enables peoples to self-serve themselves wills, as well as offering other services including probate and even cremation.How do you move fast when you’re dealing with something as important as death? How do you get the right balance between risk, rules and pace?
Mini Holland is the poster-child for the transformation of an urban area.A network of congested residential streets in North East London has become peaceful and tranquil. The local high street converted from a double-parked rat-run into a desirable pedestrianised destination.As the first Low Traffic Neighbourhood of the modern era, council reps from across Britain (and Europe) have visited to learn lessons.Not that I needed travel far: it all happened in Walthamstow, where I live, and my kids were two of the many who benefited.It was the vision of 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝘂𝘁𝘆 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗪𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗺 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗹 𝗖𝗹𝘆𝗱𝗲 𝗟𝗼𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀, and he tells me the full inspirational story in today’s episode.
Autonomous public transport has the potential to transform our cities. Suburbs that are not currently served by public transport could be cost-effectively connected for the first time, while conventional bus routes could be expanded.One city that is taking the lead in experimenting with autonomous public transport is Paris, under the leadership of James Dick at RATP.In today’s episode, he tells me just how close he believes they are to delivering autonomous buses out on the road, driverless and at scale.It’s a great conversation with a transport leader passionate about the future and making sure that our sector meets it head-on and with positivity. Enjoy!
Gian-Mattia Schucan founded Fairtiq to make travelling by public transport effortless: no tickets, no gates, no stress. We talk about the journey from idea to reality, what operators really want from innovators and how to make change happen in public transport.I’m sad to say that this is the last episode of Season 4 but, don’t worry, I’ll be back with Season 5 in September.
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