Transport in the balance

Technology has always driven change in the transport world, from the canal system that supported the early industrial revolution in Britain to the railways that revolutionised travel in the 1800s and the motor vehicles and aircraft of the 20th century.

Each innovation redefined our transport landscape and offered an ingenious solution to the mobility needs of the day. But today, we cannot merely apply the lessons of the past to build a transport network for the future — we face new and global challenges.

We all need to face up to the challenge of climate change because carbon emissions do not stop conveniently at borders and boundaries. As our economies have grown, congestion on our roads has risen and will continue rising if we do nothing to stop it. Also, as recent events in the UK have shown, transport remains a target for terrorists.

The pace of change has also accelerated sharply. In the past, growth in demand for new forms of transport was comparatively steady. Sometimes the system was stretched but in general there was time to build a robust transport infrastructure, to assimilate and digest new patterns of travel, to predict and provide, so capacity was less of an issue.