Thoughts, insights and rants about futures, climate change, system change, transport, wicked problems, EDI, and heavy metal

By Professor Glenn Lyons

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  • Looking to make sense of the hype, substance and prospects of Mobility as a Service?

    Looking to make sense of the hype, substance and prospects of Mobility as a Service?

    Everything you need to know? A new Special Issue of one of the leading international transport journals ‘Transportation Research A: Policy and Practice’ has just been published on the topic of Developments in Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Intelligent Mobility. This is a valuable collection of papers that critically examines one of the areas of (future) mobility Read more

  • A hard hitting interview that could spoil your Christmas

    A hard hitting interview that could spoil your Christmas

    Please invest 23 minutes of your time Thanks to my longstanding colleague, Professor Jim Longhurst, my attention was drawn to an interview at COP25 in Madrid with Dr Peter Carter (Director of the Climate Emergency Institute and an expert reviewer for the IPCC). I strongly encourage you to invest 23 minutes of your time to watch his interview in full. It would Read more

  • Opening out and closing down: the treatment of uncertainty in transport planning’s forecasting paradigm

    Opening out and closing down: the treatment of uncertainty in transport planning’s forecasting paradigm

    By Glenn Lyons and Greg Marsden Download for free our new paper [1] that critically examines the history of road traffic forecasting in England from 1989 to 2018 in terms of the treatment of uncertainty and in turn brings into question how uncertainty is addressed in scheme appraisal guidance. In a team effort with equal contributions from Read more

  • Mobility dynamics: trend reversal or retracement?

    Mobility dynamics: trend reversal or retracement?

    “Changing mobility” – it was Phil Goodwin some years ago who highlighted the double meaning of ‘changing’ in a phrase like this (one of many insights from Phil that have stuck with me). It can be an adjective (mobility is changing) or a verb (mobility can be changed). The fact that mobility is changing points Read more

  • 10 reasons for the walking renaissance

    10 reasons for the walking renaissance

    10 reasons for the walking renaissance Following some great input from colleagues on Linkedin to my article (https://lnkd.in/e7h_SZ9), I’ve summarised below 10 possible contributing explanations for the 31% increase in walking trip rate in England (for trips under one mile) between 2015 and 2018 as indicated by National Travel Survey data: 1. Misrepresentation of actual Read more

  • Big changes are afoot – Walking is up by 31% in 3 years!

    Big changes are afoot – Walking is up by 31% in 3 years!

    As you may know, I am a big fan of ‘Walking as a Service’ (WaaS). Thanks to Silicon Valley harnessing the power of geography in the form of Google Maps Navigation, three key questions that could stand in the way of choosing to walk can now be answered: How do I get there? How far Read more

  • Decarbonising surface transport – probable, plausible or only possible?

    Decarbonising surface transport – probable, plausible or only possible?

    12 years ago the UK Chancellor asked Professor Julia King to “examine the vehicle and fuel technologies that, over the next 25 years, could help to decarbonise road transport, particularly cars”. Her report noted that “The global challenge is to support increases in road transport use, in a sustainable, environmentally-responsible way” [emphasis added]. It considered that Read more

  • On the UK’s hottest July day on record – what to make of the Anthropocene?

    On the UK’s hottest July day on record – what to make of the Anthropocene?

    Like many, I have felt my awareness and concern over the seriousness of climate change growing in recent times as peaceful protest combines with substantial scientific evidence to strongly suggest we are in big trouble. I awoke this morning to the Tweet below from the BBC which shocked me. I decided today was the day Read more

  • 5 thoughts for the future of transport planning

    5 thoughts for the future of transport planning

    My colleague Paul Hammond asked me to come up with five thoughts for the future of transport planning as part of a gathering this weekend of c100 bright minds from within Mott MacDonald’s growing population of transport planners. I thought I’d share them on Linkedin and see what other people’s thoughts are. 1 Black swans Read more

  • Vision-led strategic planning for an uncertain world – FUTURES now available

    Vision-led strategic planning for an uncertain world – FUTURES now available

    www.mottmac.com/futures The challenge Mainstream transport planning has been and continues to be in the ‘forecast-led paradigm’. Yet we are confronted by deep uncertainty about the future as we bear witness to significant behaviour change and technological innovation – brought about in part by the collision and merging of the digital age with the motor age. Read more

  • Future of Mobility – Urban Strategy – are we heading in the right direction?

    Future of Mobility – Urban Strategy – are we heading in the right direction?

    So its out! Amid the political turmoil in Westminster, we have a Government document setting out its strategy for the future of urban mobility. Having contributed my views as part of the Mott MacDonald submission to the call for evidence and views on the Future of Mobility last summer, I was curious to see what the Strategy has to say. Here Read more

  • From traffic-flow theory to people-flow theory

    From traffic-flow theory to people-flow theory

    From traffic-flow theory to people-flow theory. This is what happens when a transport professor has insomnia! Thoughts welcome – I’ve posted this while still sleep-deprived!! This is my musing regarding how highways dominated by cars compares with highways dominated by buses. If speed were a crude proxy for convenience then its self-evident that while the Read more