Highways Voices: Talking Roads and Transport Technology innovation

Paul Hutton
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Business News
  • Updated Semiweekly

The Highways Voices podcast is a must-listen for professionals in the Highways and Transport Technology industries covering construction, maintenance, Intelligent Transport Systems and Public Transportation. Presented by leading journalists Paul Hutton and Adrian Tatum, you’ll hear industry leaders sharing insights you won’t hear anywhere else, giving you a taste of the latest thinking about the sector's new techniques and technologies, collaborations and innovations. All in the time it takes for an average daily commute (or dog walk!). We bring you keynote-speaker quality guests into your phone or laptop, ensuring every time you listen you’ll learn something new you can use in your day-to-day job. Plus, you'll catch up with the top stories from the daily newsletters sent by Highways-News.com and hear the latest from our podcast partners LCRIG, the TTF, ADEPT and ITS UK.

  1. 1d ago

    Taking Live Labs 2’s £30 million of innovation off the shelf and onto the road

    The £30 million ADEPT Live Labs 2 programme has tested new ways to cut carbon, save money and improve the management of local roads—but how does the highways sector ensure that its findings do not simply end up gathering dust? As the Live Labs 2 regional roadshow prepares to begin the day after this podcast is released, Highways Voices speaks to Programme Director Giles Perkins about taking the programme’s learning directly to local authorities across the country. Giles explains why “low carbon” does not have to mean “high cost”, and why the programme’s focus has broadened to what he calls the vital combination of cost, time and carbon. He discusses how £30 million of investment has helped de-risk innovation, giving authorities evidence about what works, what does not and what can be adapted to meet their own local challenges. Subscribe to Highways Voices on your favourite podcast platform and never miss an episode. The conversation also explores why changing business as usual can be harder than developing the innovation itself. Giles explains how procurement, finance, legal teams, senior leaders and politicians all have a part to play—and why the roadshow is designed to bring those different voices together. Listeners will also hear what to expect from the free regional workshops, how an AI tool is making almost 70 Live Labs 2 documents easier to explore, and what Giles hopes the programme will have changed five or ten years from now. If you work in local authority highways, manage budgets, specify products, procure services or want proven innovation to be adopted more quickly, listen to this episode before the roadshow reaches your region. Highways Voices is brought to you with our podcast partners the Transport Technology Forum, LCRIG, ITS UK and ADEPT.

  2. 5d ago

    Peter Hitchens and Rory Sutherland debate whether the car has been Britain's greatest transport success – or its biggest mistake

    Veteran journalist Peter Hitchens and leading behavioural scientist Rory Sutherland debate cars, railways, HS2, road building and the future of transport in a “omnibus edition” of Highways Voices today which brings their complete conversation together from this week’s series of special podcasts. Mr Hitchens, Mail on Sunday columnist and author of the forthcoming book “The Madness of Cars”, argues that Britain made a historic mistake by allowing the motor car to dominate its transport system and dismantling much of the railway network which preceded it. Mr Sutherland, vice-chairman of Ogilvy UK and co-author of “Transport for Humans”, is equally enthusiastic about rail but strongly rejects the idea that the car itself was a mistake, arguing that it has delivered enormous gains in freedom, accessibility and economic opportunity. Subscribe to Highways Voices on your favourite podcast platform and never miss an episode. What follows is a wide-ranging and often good-humoured argument about almost every major question in modern transport. They discuss the railway closures of the 1960s, whether HS2 represents an obsession with speed at the expense of connectivity, the value of trams and bicycles, electric vehicles and e-bikes, plus induced traffic, road pricing, safety, land values and the relationship between transport and where people choose to live and work. Some of the most revealing moments come when apparent disagreement gives way to common ground. Both question the logic behind spending vast sums to save a relatively small amount of time on occasional long-distance journeys. Both believe Britain's railways could be made far more attractive. And both accept that people need credible alternatives to the car rather than simply being punished for using one when no practical alternative exists. Mr Sutherland argues for better information, easier interchange and a much more experimental approach to transport policy, including improved parkway facilities, micromobility and better integration between cars, bicycles and trains. Mr Hitchens goes further, saying policymakers first need to accept that the transport system built around mass car ownership may itself have been a wrong turn. Their disagreement is at times philosophical as much as technical: does the car represent individual freedom, or has mass car ownership created a system in which people are effectively forced to drive? Is a collectively efficient transport system necessarily less free? And should policymakers trust economic models and theoretical time savings, or simply look much harder at what passengers actually value? Listen to the full special edition of Highways Voices to hear Peter Hitchens and Rory Sutherland debate those questions in depth – with remarkably little intervention required from the host – and decide for yourself whether the future of British transport lies in defending the flexibility of the car, rebuilding the alternatives to it, or finding a much better way of combining the two. Highways Voices is brought to you with our podcast partners the Transport Technology Forum, LCRIG, ITS UK and ADEPT.

  3. Sep 9

    Hitchens and Sutherland ask what Britain should actually do about transport

    After two episodes arguing about how Britain became so dependent on the car, Peter Hitchens and Rory Sutherland turn to the more difficult question in the final part of this week’s special Highways Voices series: what should the country actually do next? Mr Hitchens makes clear that he is not proposing a sudden programme to remove cars from everyday life, arguing instead that Britain first needs to recognise what he regards as a profound historic mistake in allowing the motor car to dominate the transport system. He says changing that position could take generations, but that long-term planning cannot begin until the underlying problem is acknowledged. Subscribe to Highways Voices on your favourite podcast platform and never miss an episode. Mr Sutherland takes a more experimental approach. Drawing on arguments around the late transport analyst David Metz's work, he questions whether major transport schemes are assessed using the right measures at all. Rather than concentrating so heavily on speed and theoretical journey-time savings, he suggests policymakers should pay much more attention to the quality, convenience and frequency of the journeys people actually make. That leads to discussion of Heathrow's driverless pods, why travellers often seem more attracted to trams than buses, and the way permanent transport infrastructure can influence development. The pair also return to the Oxford-Cambridge railway, with Mr Hitchens using its troubled reopening as an example of what he sees as Britain's inability to deliver a coherent transport policy. The conversation also turns to smaller-scale interventions. Mr Sutherland calls for widespread experimentation with intermodality, micromobility, better station access and easier links between cars, bicycles and trains, arguing that policymakers should watch how people respond before committing billions of pounds to another major scheme. He says improving relatively short journeys made frequently may deliver far greater value than shaving a few minutes from occasional long-distance trips. Listen to the concluding episode to hear whether the two men can find a workable area of common ground, why connectivity may matter more than speed, and whether Britain's next transport revolution should begin not with another grand project, but with a series of much smaller ideas. Highways Voices is brought to you with our podcast partners the Transport Technology Forum, LCRIG, ITS UK and ADEPT.

  4. Sep 8

    Hitchens and Sutherland debate whether cars really deliver freedom

    The argument between Peter Hitchens and Rory Sutherland over Britain's relationship with the motor car intensifies in part two of this week’s special Highways Voices series, as the pair move from railways and HS2 to the much broader question of whether car ownership really represents freedom. Mr Sutherland argues that the strength of the car is its autonomy: the ability to travel when you want, with passengers or luggage, to places which may be difficult to reach in any other way. Mr Hitchens challenges that definition, pointing instead to congestion, traffic lights, roadworks and the sheer number of vehicles competing for limited road space. Subscribe to Highways Voices on your favourite podcast platform and never miss an episode. They also debate one of the most familiar arguments in highways policy – induced traffic. Mr Hitchens says widening roads ultimately creates more traffic, while Mr Sutherland accepts the effect exists but argues that additional road capacity can also enable economically useful journeys. That takes the discussion into road pricing, where Mr Sutherland says there is a case for using pricing intelligently to manage scarce road space at the times it is most heavily demanded. The disagreement then widens to electric vehicles, e-bikes and micromobility. Mr Hitchens is highly critical of battery-powered road transport and of e-bikes in particular, while Mr Sutherland argues that electrification gives transport greater flexibility because electricity can be generated from a wide range of energy sources. They also discuss road safety and the extent to which the risks associated with everyday car use have become normalised. Yet there is also common ground. Both accept that people need realistic alternatives to driving and that simply making the car more difficult or expensive to use is not enough when homes, workplaces and businesses have been shaped around car access. Mr Sutherland argues that better information, pricing and intermodality could encourage people to make different choices without removing the option of driving. Listen to part two to hear two very different philosophies of transport collide – and to discover why an argument about roads and railways ends up becoming a debate about individual freedom, collective efficiency and even whether Peter Hitchens's transport philosophy can reasonably be described as Maoist. Highways Voices is brought to you with our podcast partners the Transport Technology Forum, LCRIG, ITS UK and ADEPT.

  5. Sep 7

    Hitchens and Sutherland clash over cars, rail and what Britain got wrong on transport

    Veteran newspaper columnist and author Peter Hitchens and behavioural science expert Rory Sutherland go head-to-head over the future of transport in a special series of Highways Voices podcasts this week, beginning with an argument over whether Britain has become far too dependent on the car. The discussion starts with an area of agreement. Mr Sutherland, vice-chairman of advertising agency Ogilvy UK and co-author of “Transport for Humans”, describes himself as a huge enthusiast for rail and argues that people could be encouraged to use trains more often through better information, easier interchange and measures designed to make rail a more obvious option. Mr Hitchens, who is currently writing a book “The Madness of Cars” agrees that more journeys should be made by rail, but says the fundamental problem is that much of the network that criss-crossed the country no longer exists. Subscribe to Highways Voices on your favourite podcast platform and never miss an episode. But the agreement does not last. Mr Sutherland says the car has brought extraordinary economic and social benefits by providing flexibility across a huge range of journeys, while Mr Hitchens argues that Britain sacrificed what he considers a more rational transport network in favour of a system increasingly dominated by cars. The pair also debate trams, bicycles, parkway stations, electric vehicles and whether a transport system designed around steel wheels and steel rails would ultimately be more efficient. The conversation was prompted by an exchange between the two men on social media after Mr Sutherland challenged comments from Mr Hitchens about car ownership and the amount of time vehicles spend parked. Rather than continue the disagreement in short online posts, Highways News brought them together for an extended conversation. Listen to part one of Highways Voices to hear where Peter Hitchens and Rory Sutherland unexpectedly agree, where they most certainly do not, and why a debate which begins with railways quickly develops into a much bigger argument about how Britain should move. Parts two and three are published on Wednesday 9 and Thursday 10 September. Highways Voices is brought to you with our podcast partners the Transport Technology Forum, LCRIG, ITS UK and ADEPT.

  6. Sep 1

    The highways carbon revolution? Turning lower emissions into new revenue

    What if choosing a lower-carbon way of maintaining a road didn't simply reduce emissions, but actually created a financial asset which could help pay for the next job? That's the potentially transformative idea explored in this week's Highways Voices, as Adrian Tatum talks to Gary Cook, founder of Asphalt IQ and Carbon Vault IQ, about technology designed to turn measurable carbon savings on highways projects into traceable carbon credits. Subscribe to Highways Voices on your favourite podcast platform and never miss an episode. Mr Cook explains how data captured directly from worksites can establish the carbon impact of what actually happened, rather than relying on generic averages – and why he believes that could change the economics of sustainable highways maintenance. The conversation begins with the challenge facing authorities and contractors trying to establish accurate carbon figures across complicated supply chains. Mr Cook says scope three emissions can represent up to 95% of emissions on a typical road reconstruction site, yet collecting reliable information covering materials, suppliers and transport remains difficult. Asphalt IQ's answer is to put digital data collection into the hands of the site supervisor, capturing information in real time and supporting PAS 2080 reporting. But it is what happens next that makes this discussion particularly interesting. Carbon Vault IQ compares the carbon generated by the chosen treatment with a "business as usual" alternative, with the saving potentially becoming a carbon credit. Mr Cook argues this could introduce an entirely new finance stream into highways – one which could help contractors invest in equipment and give authorities more money to spend on preventative maintenance and lower-carbon treatments. The podcast also tackles the obvious question: how can anyone be confident those credits are genuine? Mr Cook explains the proposed independent methodology approval and third-party auditing process, alongside the use of real-time site data to provide evidence of exactly which materials, plants and transport movements were involved. He also discusses "dynamic issuance", under which some credits could be released over time to demonstrate that the expected longer-term benefit of an intervention has actually been delivered. Perhaps the biggest prize could be pavement preservation. Mr Cook argues that additional revenue generated through carbon savings could help make treatments such as surface dressing more attractive, allowing contractors to scale their operations and helping the industry move away from an expensive cycle of reactive pothole repairs. It could even help bridge the cost difference which currently prevents some lower-carbon materials and treatments being selected. As Mr Cook puts it, the ambition is to turn carbon from a "reporting burden" into a "measurable and monetisable asset". If the model works as envisaged, doing the greener thing might no longer simply be an environmental decision – it could make financial sense too. Highways Voices is brought to you with our podcast partners the Transport Technology Forum, LCRIG, ITS UK and ADEPT.

  7. Aug 25

    Why standards matter: Revisiting the TOPAS debate

    The announcement that Traffic Open Products and Specifications Ltd (TOPAS) is to close because its current funding arrangements are no longer sustainable puts a new perspective on a Highways Voices discussion first broadcast in February. TOPAS was established as an independent, not-for-profit organisation following the removal of DfT Type Approval, maintaining specifications and registering products used across the UK’s traffic control sector. Its Management Board has now agreed to close the organisation, although it is expected to continue operating until the second quarter of 2028 to enable existing product developments and registration applications to be completed. Subscribe to Highways Voices on your favourite podcast platform and never miss an episode. Against that background, we are republishing our conversation with TOPAS’s Kealie Franklin, Martin Andrews, Services Director at Yunex Traffic, Rob Harding, Engineering Manager for Telent’s traffic business, and SWARCO’s Head of Product and Solutions, Derek McLean. The podcast, itself prompted by an opinion piece about standards, provides useful context to the discussions the industry will now have about the future. The guests explain the role specifications play in ensuring equipment from different suppliers can work together, supporting interoperability, protecting investment and giving highway authorities confidence in the technology they procure. They also look ahead to an increasingly connected road network, discussing why common standards become particularly important as connected vehicles, new detection technologies and automated systems develop, while considering procurement, compatibility and the long-term maintenance of equipment. TOPAS says it is continuing to work with the Department for Transport, which has undertaken to explore options for the continuation of standards, including those currently being developed or reviewed. That makes this 30-minute conversation especially timely. Of course, it does not address the closure decision itself, but it does explain the wider role TOPAS and its standards have played and sets out many of the issues the sector will now need to consider as discussions about future arrangements continue. Highways Voices is brought to you with our podcast partners the Transport Technology Forum, LCRIG, ITS UK and ADEPT.

  8. Aug 18

    Jo Shiner on the road safety crisis and how to fix it

    Why aren’t we more outraged that 1,700 people still die on UK roads each year? Today on Highways Voices we talk road safety because, despite having some of the safest roads globally, road deaths in the UK have plateaued, and efforts to reduce them, through enforcement, awareness, and education, aren’t achieving meaningful impact. Subscribe to Highways Voices on your favourite podcast platform and never miss an episode. Sussex Police Chief Constable Jo Shiner, who’s head of Britain’s roads policing, is our guest and gives us a real insight into her thoughts on keeping our roads safe, and indeed making them safer. She explains why a National Road Safety Board and collision investigation system could revolutionise how we tackle fatalities, gives her views on how emerging enforcement technologies like AI-powered cameras and in-vehicle sensors could eliminate risky behaviour before it becomes fatal, and discusses the cultural and legislative shifts needed to elevate road safety from afterthought to national priority. If you’re worried about road safety, this is a must listen episode for you! Highways Voices is brought to you with our partners the Transport Technology Forum, LCRIG, ADEPT and ITS UK.

See All (200)

About

The Highways Voices podcast is a must-listen for professionals in the Highways and Transport Technology industries covering construction, maintenance, Intelligent Transport Systems and Public Transportation. Presented by leading journalists Paul Hutton and Adrian Tatum, you’ll hear industry leaders sharing insights you won’t hear anywhere else, giving you a taste of the latest thinking about the sector's new techniques and technologies, collaborations and innovations. All in the time it takes for an average daily commute (or dog walk!). We bring you keynote-speaker quality guests into your phone or laptop, ensuring every time you listen you’ll learn something new you can use in your day-to-day job. Plus, you'll catch up with the top stories from the daily newsletters sent by Highways-News.com and hear the latest from our podcast partners LCRIG, the TTF, ADEPT and ITS UK.

Information

You Might Also Like