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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  • As we face the greatest fight of our professional lives we need transport planners with super powers

    As we face the greatest fight of our professional lives we need transport planners with super powers

    On Tuesday 14 April I spoke with Michelle Wood and Brogan McPherson from PTRC for the first time about an event – a ‘fireside chat’ – they were thinking of running looking at COVID-19 and transport and wanted me to Chair. Nine days later we ran a panel discussion operating on Zoom and live streaming to YouTube. 1,200 people had registered… Read more

  • “See that bloke over there? That’s Lemmy’s dad”

    “See that bloke over there? That’s Lemmy’s dad”

    “See that bloke over there? That’s Lemmy’s dad”. I’ll never forget that, doing my work experience after O-Levels (remember them?) at Salisbury Cattle Market. And there he was, allegedly, the father of one of the metal gods. I didn’t pluck up the courage at the time to speak to him. What a missed opportunity. A… Read more

  • The Mott MacDonald journey continues at UWE

    The Mott MacDonald journey continues at UWE

    šŸ“¢ BREAKING NEWS I’m delighted to announce that my role as the Mott MacDonald Professor of Future Mobility that started in 2018 has been extended by a further three years. My love of transport stretches back into the last century, but it was a flurry of excitement in the transport sector in the mid 2010s… Read more

  • South Africa’s energy and water crises

    South Africa’s energy and water crises

    When crises start to bite…. We’ve all experienced the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the news now from France is a clamp down on swimming pools because of water shortages. For those of us in the Global North that sounds like it’s impinging upon comfortable lifestyles (which not everyone enjoys). Imagine water shortages that… Read more

  • I get to wear my Highway to Hell t-shirt professionally for a look to the future of roads

    I get to wear my Highway to Hell t-shirt professionally for a look to the future of roads

    Highway to hell? Yes, my dream has come true – a ‘well-suited’ (get it?) pose in a metal T-shirt in the latest edition of Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation (CIHT) Transportation Professional publication to talk about ‘Seeing the Road Ahead’. I have a feeling – in the UK at least – that in the transport sector… Read more

  • The Pentagram of Influence

    The Pentagram of Influence

    What a devilishly wicked problem getting the world mobilised on climate action is. So devilish that I think we are at the mercy of an inverted pentagram of influence that holds everthing in tension rather than enabling all factions to pull together to create concerted climate action of the intensity required. In the pentagram five… Read more