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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  • The Driverless Cars Emulsion – are you ready to come together?

    The Driverless Cars Emulsion – are you ready to come together?

    Driverless cars – it can be a divisive topic. Some people love them. Some people hate them. The lovers and the haters are like oil and water in my experience. They just don’t come together well – they don’t like mixing. Yet oil and water can be helped to mix by adding an emulsifier. Hence Read more

  • Planning for connected autonomous vehicles

    Planning for connected autonomous vehicles

    There is a burgeoning volume of literature on autonomous vehicles. We wanted to cut to the chase and identify the most important issues for our clients (especially those in the public sector) to be aware of and addressing. We have produced a crowd-sourced report that draws upon our thinking across Mott MacDonald globally which we Read more

  • The importance of user perspective in the evolution of Mobility as a Service

    The importance of user perspective in the evolution of Mobility as a Service

    Download our new paper. See a video of the paper being presented. A collaboration between Mott MacDonald and UWE Bristol‘s Centre for Transport & Society. At the end of 2018 the UK Parliament’s House of Commons Transport Committee published the report on its inquiry into Mobility as a Service (MaaS). It considers findings and conclusions concerning MaaS in practice and issues of governance and Read more

  • Crowdsurfing, diversity and inclusion – ‘weirdo, mosher, freak’

    You know I love metal, right? And you know how excited people get when they see themselves on TV? Well I’m excited to say that I’m the pink shirt crowd surfer in this official Bloodstock festival photo from August this year. That’s all! 🤘. In fact NO, that’s not all. One of the main stages…

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  • Dear Transport Secretary…good luck with the bed of nails

    “The PM has decided that we need a national transport policy” says the PM’s special advisor, Sir Mark Spencer. “Yes, well, why not?” answers the Minister, Jim Fracker – sorry, Jim Hacker. It’s pointed out to him by Sir Spencer that “We need a policy”. “We did have a policy before” replies Hacker. “Did we?”…

  • There will be no driverless cars on a dead planet

    Anthropomorphism. One of the biggest words in my vocabulary – one I added right near the beginning of my personal journey deeper and deeper into the world of future mobility. I was delighted when Adam Hill, the Editor of ITS International Magazine asked me this summer whether I would share my thoughts on future mobility in a written…

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  • 20 years at UWE – in the blink of an eye

    In the blink of an eye, 20 years have flown by. In 2002 I had just become Chair of the Transport Planning Society. I was encouraged to apply for a newly advertised professorship at the University of the West of England. UWE was looking to establish itself as a centre of excellence in transport. At the…

  • Outdated parking bay sizes are holding back progress

    Perhaps it was a slow news day on Saturday. The Times ran an article called ‘Big plans will finally ease parking squeeze’. Apparently “Ministers have supported a plan to increase the size of parking bays to keep up with the growing size of cars”. This is what facepalming on social media was made for, isn’t…