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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  • Compulsory National Service – FFS

    Compulsory National Service – FFS

    [Apologies. The image for this post may cause offence to young people who care more about climate change than empire.] It appears the Prime Minister (or one of his SPADs) has been watching his box set of Yes Prime Minister desperately hoping to find inspiration to win a few votes. Nothing like looking back to Read more

  • Archeologists are baffled

    Archeologists are baffled

    Archeologists are baffled by discovery of an ancient document that supposedly offered a guiding light in a bygone era. “We’re still unclear whether or not these principles were meant to be put into practice or just a nice theory” said Professor Xavier Rumpus, a specialist in public discourse and protest. His colleague Professor Beatrice Profitte Read more

  • From Hell I Rise (and I’m NOT talking about Predict and Provide!)

    From Hell I Rise (and I’m NOT talking about Predict and Provide!)

    Predict and Provide just keeps rising from the dead, doesn’t it? Bear with me. The album ‘From Hell I Rise’ has just arrived. A little of what you fancy does you good. Calling all my metalhead connections – this is a BIG hashtag#MetalFriday. I remember going with Robin Lyons to see Slayer for their final Read more

  • Amazing women in the construction industry

    Amazing women in the construction industry

    Storytelling, personal journeys, and leaders walking the walk help us to nurture talent, embrace diversity and foster an inclusive working environment. But we have a long way to go. I have been at the annual Construction Industry Council (CIC) conference today on behalf of Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation (CIHT) – a gathering of Read more

  • Let’s get interrailing – place your bets now

    Let’s get interrailing – place your bets now

    I’ve never been to Glastonbury Festival but I’m guessing getting your summer rail journey planned across Europe is on a par with the stress of whether or not you’ll get a Glasto ticket when they become available. Last year for the family holiday in southern spain I went by train (while the others flew). The Read more

  • Decarbonising transport – buckle up!

    Decarbonising transport – buckle up!

    Here’s your progressively zoomed-in May 2024 update on decarbonisation: globally as a whole, globally for transport, globally for direct emissions from transport, for direct emissions from transport in the UK and for car driving and flying. The story goes like this in brief: We need to reduce emissions globally by 45% compared to 2010 levels Read more

  • People at the heart

    People at the heart

    Our journeys through life and careers are about people at the heart. I am increasingly aware of this as I reflect. It was therefore a most welcome opportunity this weekend to head to The Black Heart in Camden Town, London. Will Pedley will be known to many of you as the current Transport Planner of Read more

  • We’ve been told so often that economic growth is a good thing that we can’t see past it

    We’ve been told so often that economic growth is a good thing that we can’t see past it

    Cognitive fluency is an unconscious bias whereby things that are harder to understand are less believable. For most of us, we’ve been told so often that economic growth is a good thing that we can’t see past it. The idea of NOT wanting economic growth is unthinkable, even blasphemous to growth worshipers. I found this Read more

  • Should I give up Black Mass or going to the annual Transportation Research Board conference to fight climate change?

    Should I give up Black Mass or going to the annual Transportation Research Board conference to fight climate change?

    Should I drink 5000 cans of beer each year or fly to the Transportation Research Board annual conference in Washington? The myclimate website suggests that “In order to stop climate change this is the maximum amount of CO2 that can be generated by a single person in a year: 0.600tCO2”. I’m not sure what ‘stop Read more

  • Are the UK political parties in listening mode on transport? The CIHT manfesto has been launched today

    Are the UK political parties in listening mode on transport? The CIHT manfesto has been launched today

    BREAKING NEWS 📢 Vote for us and we’ll ensure transport gets worse more slowly than the other parties. This was Phil Goodwin’s observation years ago on why transport does not tend to feature strongly at election time. Now, beyond addressing traffic congestion, there are bigger fish to fry. So will the UK’s political parties give Read more

  • Meeting someone for the first time when you feel like you’ve know them for years

    Meeting someone for the first time when you feel like you’ve know them for years

    Meeting someone for the first time when you feel like you’ve know them for years. I had the great pleasure of spending some time at home with Tim Sullivan today and his wonderful family as they passed through on their way back to Australia. It was impossible in the space of a couple of hours Read more

  • You can ‘fly off on holidays and eat steak’ under net zero

    You can ‘fly off on holidays and eat steak’ under net zero

    Chris Stark – thank you for all your immensely important work with the CCC. But I’m totally non-plussed by “you can still fly off on holiday each year, and you can have a steak if you want to. There’s not a huge shift here”. I’d genuinely welcome an explanation so I understand. The message to Read more

  • 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.…

  • 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…

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  • 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…

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  • 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…

  • 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…

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