Labour Spending Review

[Magdalia]

For example CPRE have suggested that rather than road building we could use the same money to create a rural bus network which has an hourly bus service from 06:00 to 00:00 to every village in the UK.

How many bus drivers does that need? What impact does it have on wage rates for bus driving and lorry driving? What impact does it have on the labour market more generally?

 

[slowroad]

Which gets us back to...

Building more and more roads, expanding existing roads, none of this can ever solve the fundamental problem. Over time, we, as a nation of people, are wanting to travel more frequently and further than we have traditionally done in the past.

Especially as national government, local authorities and councils can't even manage to maintain the current road network.

We, as a country need to consider the wider picture. That includes considering the young (both children who are not allowed to drive a car, and young adults who either cannot afford to drive or choose not to) and older adults, who either for medical reasons can't drive or choose not to.

Believe it or not, not everyone can drive and not everyone wants to drive.

That means having better public transport. That means spending tax payers money on buses, trams, metro systems and trains. Not playing whack-a-mole trying to remove pinch points in the road network by putting in lots more asphalt.

Now, not everyone will want to use public transport. And in some cases, using a car or van may be the better option (say, transporting goods, e.g. taking your child to university with a boot full of their stuff).

Similarly, not all journeys are practical by public transport. It's very unlikely that every village and hamlet will get a public transport service. And staff that travel at night (shift workers, on-call staff etc.) may have to use a car, van, motorbike etc.

But if we can encourage more people to use public transport, running the service will in time become more cost effective, it will be better for the environment and it may even reduce the pressure on the road network. But only if a good quality service is offered. That means clean, reliable services at times that the people want. Not the rag-tag mess we currently have.

Some of the new railway lines and stations that have opened up over the last 36 years have shown that there may well be unrealised demand for more public transport.

Autonomous cars/taxis will likely decimate public transport over much of the country. People generally want convenience.

 

[PGAT]

Autonomous cars/taxis will likely decimate public transport over much of the country. People generally want convenience.

People have been saying this for a decade. Good luck with that

 

[Krokodil]

Autonomous cars/taxis will likely decimate public transport over much of the country. People generally want convenience.

Autonomous cars don't solve congestion.

 

[FMerrymon]

Autonomous cars don't solve congestion.

Yep, and they will potentially make the problem worse.

The only way would be to have American style urban areas to expand the capacity of roads. Many complain about the demise of the High Street, yet it's what you end up with in a private vehicle dominated urban area, where one drives to the out of town supermarket instead of buying from local stores.

I prefer we don't repeat the mistakes of the 60s and 70s

 

[Krokodil]

The only way would be to have American style urban areas to expand the capacity of roads.

Which worked so well in Los Angeles...

 

[FMerrymon]

Which worked so well in Los Angeles...

Exactly, never been so disappointed by a city.

Automation doesn't change the laws of physics. Public transport's trump card is capacity.

 

[styles]

Autonomous cars/taxis will likely decimate public transport over much of the country. People generally want convenience.

I'm always a bit cautious about dismissing tech predictions, as even Gates was caught out by the whole, 'nobody will ever need more than 64 kilobytes of RAM' or whatever it was.

But autonomous cars and taxis are a long way off for the UK still.

Our legislation does not support it, the trials will take years, and while those trials are ongoing they will require a driver to be present in order to step in (see for example the autonomous bus trials in Fife, which actually had 2 members of staff on board).

The technology will prove itself to be insufficient in its early introduction. The US and China may be happy with the safety of autonomous cars, but they have 5x and 7x the per capita road death rate of the UK respectively. Despite the moans we all have about daft drivers in the UK, our roads are some of the safest in the world, whether it's measured per capita, per km driven, or per vehicles owned.

Even then, CA halted their autonomous taxi scheme after incidents, AZ had to recall all the Jags they had running as Robotaxis, which largely leaves us with the likes of China, who frankly have little concern for citizen deaths if it means some apparent efficiency for the state. WeRide operates in countries I could count on one hand as far as I'm aware, and they're basically the biggest player.

It is worth remembering that we have been experimenting with driver assistance systems for over 100 years now.

None of this is to say robotaxis won't become the norm in the UK, but it is not imminent by any means.

 

[Dr Hoo]

How many places have gained ‘new’ bypasses in the last few years? Here in the Peak District it was some while since the last one as far as I’m aware (Chapel-en-Frith). This is despite us having one of the earliest (Taddington). Mottram is finally seeing some improvements after decades of stalling.

Don’t confuse junction safety improvements (often to benefit pedestrian or cycle movement or to access new housing or even rail-served freight interchanges) with ‘traditional’ small town or village bypasses.

 

[The Ham]

Much as I agree with the principle of wanting more bus travel to be possible, that suggestion doesn't make sense, so I'm struggling to believe that's what the CPRE actually said.

Happy for you to read up on this and confirm if I've miss understood anything:

Every village, every hour – a comprehensive bus network for rural England - ACEVO

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. This is the excerpt.

www.acevo.org.uk

1.3 What is the solution?

The solution to this problem is to create a comprehensive, convenient and reliable bus network connecting major cities to their satellite communities in the countryside, whole districts to their regional hubs, and all villages of above a certain size into the regional and national public transport system network. This can be achieved by:

Recognising a universal basic right to public transport and setting a statutory duty for local transport authorities to provide communities of more than two to three hundred residents with a guaranteed minimum of at least hourly services, from 6am to midnight, 7 days a week, with more regular services for larger communities depending on their size.
Legislating to establish bus regulation under the ‘guiding mind’ of local or regional transport authorities in all areas, with the option for local transport authorities to contract services or to provide them directly so as to reinvest the shareholder dividend savings.
Establishing guaranteed revenue funding from the national government in the order of £2.7 billion per year to enable local transport authorities to deliver an ‘every village, every hour’ bus network.
Redirecting funding from current road building schemes to fund the ‘every village, every hour’ network as well as reviewing the range of fundraising powers deployed by local transport authorities in other countries and assess the best ways to enable England’s transport authorities to access similar powers.
Ensuring that the transformed rural public transport network is affordable or free, for instance through a nationally established £1 flat fare for bus services
Moving England to a Swiss style single national public transport timetable, aligning all trains and buses on a ‘pulse’ model of repeated hourly services.

 

[slowroad]

Exactly, never been so disappointed by a city.

Automation doesn't change the laws of physics. Public transport's trump card is capacity.

Capacity does count. But taking people where they don’t want to end up counts against. In some cases, that doesn’t matter. In others it will matter a lot.

It is pointless to cite individual examples of system failures. Autonomous taxis are operating at scale in a number of American cities including SF. We may be in the foothills of a revolutionary change in transport landscape.

 

[styles]

Capacity does count. But taking people where they don’t want to end up counts against. In some cases, that doesn’t matter. In others it will matter a lot.

It's highly relevant though. There is no suggestion that every home should be convenient connected to every other home, workplace, or amenity. This isn't feasible. But most people in the UK live in large towns and in cities (heck, nearly 1 in 7 live in London), and for these towns we should have a design aim which minimises having one person in a car, whether automated or not. It's not efficient, not good for health, not good for safety. That doesn't mean we need a direct train from Beddgelert to Bexleyheath - there will always be journeys which need to be made by car. But we can do better, and when it is available, reliable, and affordable, the evidence shows people use it.

It is pointless to cite individual examples of system failures. Autonomous taxis are operating at scale in a number of American cities including SF. We may be in the foothills of a revolutionary change in transport landscape.

By the same logic, it is pointless to cite individual examples of system rollouts.

In your SF example, Waymo have restricted their robotaxi operations in the past week (https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/waymo-san-francisco-service-curtailed-ice-protests/), GM pulled out of their SF Cruise operations in December (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj902y4ez71o), and a month ago Waymo had to recall all their Jags because of a software fault which resulted in collisions with gates, poles, and chains (https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/14/w...g-low-speed-collisions-with-gates-and-chains/).

If SF is the best example of autonomous vehicles then it portrays the whole idea with a pretty poor light in my view.

This technology is not suitable for the UK where we actually value road safety. Trials will take place, they will require having drivers, and it will be a very long time before autonomous vehicles dominate the roads in the UK. And even that is not desirable from an air pollution (EVs on average emit more PM 2.5/10 than ICEs) or congestion point or view.

 

[slowroad]

It's highly relevant though. There is no suggestion that every home should be convenient connected to every other home, workplace, or amenity. This isn't feasible. But most people in the UK live in large towns and in cities (heck, nearly 1 in 7 live in London), and for these towns we should have a design aim which minimises having one person in a car, whether automated or not. It's not efficient, not good for health, not good for safety. That doesn't mean we need a direct train from Beddgelert to Bexleyheath - there will always be journeys which need to be made by car. But we can do better, and when it is available, reliable, and affordable, the evidence shows people use it.


By the same logic, it is pointless to cite individual examples of system rollouts.

In your SF example, Waymo have restricted their robotaxi operations in the past week (https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/waymo-san-francisco-service-curtailed-ice-protests/), GM pulled out of their SF Cruise operations in December (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj902y4ez71o), and a month ago Waymo had to recall all their Jags because of a software fault which resulted in collisions with gates, poles, and chains (https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/14/w...g-low-speed-collisions-with-gates-and-chains/).

If SF is the best example of autonomous vehicles then it portrays the whole idea with a pretty poor light in my view.

This technology is not suitable for the UK where we actually value road safety. Trials will take place, they will require having drivers, and it will be a very long time before autonomous vehicles dominate the roads in the UK. And even that is not desirable from an air pollution (EVs on average emit more PM 2.5/10 than ICEs) or congestion point or view.

The SF issue was nothing to do with the technology.

None of us know how things will turn out, but people make choices, and I wouldn’t bet against people choosing convenience.

And while most people do live in urban areas, a much smaller proportion of the population live in the inner urban areas of larger cities, where public transport can dominate. )Cars remain the dominant mode even in outer London.)

 

[styles]

The SF issue was nothing to do with the technology.

None of us know how things will turn out, but people make choices, and I wouldn’t bet against people choosing convenience.

And while most people do live in urban areas, a much smaller proportion of the population live in the inner urban areas of larger cities, where public transport can dominate. )Cars remain the dominant mode even in outer London.)

The SF issue? I listed 3. There were possibly even more, and that's in as many years.

Yes people do choose convenience. I'm not sure how that relates to the unreadiness of autonomous cars and the legislative hurdles operators would have to jump through though. They're trying it in countries I could count on my hands and marred with disasters. The idea that they're going to take over the UK any time soon is the stuff of sci-fi writers.

 

[stuu]

Which gets us back to...

Building more and more roads, expanding existing roads, none of this can ever solve the fundamental problem. Over time, we, as a nation of people, are wanting to travel more frequently and further than we have traditionally done in the past.

Especially as national government, local authorities and councils can't even manage to maintain the current road network.

We, as a country need to consider the wider picture. That includes considering the young (both children who are not allowed to drive a car, and young adults who either cannot afford to drive or choose not to) and older adults, who either for medical reasons can't drive or choose not to.

Believe it or not, not everyone can drive and not everyone wants to drive.

That means having better public transport. That means spending tax payers money on buses, trams, metro systems and trains. Not playing whack-a-mole trying to remove pinch points in the road network by putting in lots more asphalt.

Now, not everyone will want to use public transport. And in some cases, using a car or van may be the better option (say, transporting goods, e.g. taking your child to university with a boot full of their stuff).

Similarly, not all journeys are practical by public transport. It's very unlikely that every village and hamlet will get a public transport service. And staff that travel at night (shift workers, on-call staff etc.) may have to use a car, van, motorbike etc.

But if we can encourage more people to use public transport, running the service will in time become more cost effective, it will be better for the environment and it may even reduce the pressure on ithe road network. But only if a good quality service is offered. That means clean, reliable services at times that the people want. Not the rag-tag mess we currently have.

Some of the new railway lines and stations that have opened up over the last 36 years have shown that there may well be unrealised demand for more public transport.

I agree with nearly all of that. But that doesn't stop the fact we need as a country a decent strategic road network as well. And we haven't got that. Nowhere else in Europe is there a situation like the Manchester-Sheffield road. A road like the A303 should be fully dualled, as it would be in France or Germany

 

[Starmill]

Cynical but absolutely spot on!

I don't actually think it's that cynical at all. This argument is frequently actually accepted by senior treasury staff if you believe the papers. They know full well all it does is increase costs when you refuse to replace aging public buildings, say, and lowers benefits. But they sign it off anyway because it's the only way to fit the policy framework.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I don't actually think it's that cynical at all. This argument is frequently actually accepted by senior treasury staff if you believe the papers. They know full well all it does is increase costs when you refuse to replace aging public buildings, say, and lowers benefits. But they sign it off anyway because it's the only way to fit the policy framework.

Well that is crazy policy imho

 

[slowroad]

The SF issue? I listed 3. There were possibly even more, and that's in as many years.

Yes people do choose convenience. I'm not sure how that relates to the unreadiness of autonomous cars and the legislative hurdles operators would have to jump through though. They're trying it in countries I could count on my hands and marred with disasters. The idea that they're going to take over the UK any time soon is the stuff of sci-fi writers.

Safety Impact

We're voluntarily sharing our safety data to demonstrate how the Waymo Driver is making roads safer in the places we currently operate. See the stats.

waymo.com

Uber is teaming up with a Microsoft-backed startup to launch robotaxis on the chaotic roads of London

The driverless ride-hailing service in the UK capital will see Uber deploy vehicles running Wayve's AI-powered self-driving tech in a pilot scheme.

www.businessinsider.com

Fact, not science fiction. Maybe it will take some time, or never be fully rolled out. But I can’t see why you are so sure.

 

[styles]

Safety Impact

We're voluntarily sharing our safety data to demonstrate how the Waymo Driver is making roads safer in the places we currently operate. See the stats.

waymo.com

Uber is teaming up with a Microsoft-backed startup to launch robotaxis on the chaotic roads of London

The driverless ride-hailing service in the UK capital will see Uber deploy vehicles running Wayve's AI-powered self-driving tech in a pilot scheme.

www.businessinsider.com

Fact, not science fiction. Maybe it will take some time, or never be fully rolled out. But I can’t see why you are so sure.

Maybe we're on different terms.

As I've mentioned, small scale trials with backup drivers (which means zero benefit) will absolutely proceed. I've said that. Maybe even some without backup drivers.

But that is miles, nae, decades, off meaning autonomous cars will be the dominant mode of transport.

What you've quoted backs the first assertion up. The second is mere crystal ball on both our parts, but I'll bet you £1k, inflation-linked, if you want that autonomous vehicles will not be the dominant mode of transport (or even road transport) in 10 years time.

 

[slowroad]

Maybe we're on different terms.

As I've mentioned, small scale trials with backup drivers (which means zero benefit) will absolutely proceed. I've said that.

But that is miles, nae, decades, off meaning autonomous cars will be the dominant mode of transport.

What you've quoted backs the first assertion up. The second is mere crystal ball on both our parts, but I'll bet you £1k, inflation-linked, if you want that autonomous vehicles will not be the dominant mode of transport (or even road transport) in 10 years time.

The USA experience is of large scale implementation, albeit limited to defined areas. Maybe UK cities are different for some reason.

I won’t take your bet. I don’t think they’ll be dominant in 10 years either. Significant inroads, though? Quite likely, I’d say.

 

[styles]

The USA experience is of large scale implementation, albeit limited to defined areas. Maybe UK cities are different for some reason.

UK cities will likely be even harder than the US. Most of the roads in the UK were built before the word 'road' even existed.

I won’t take your bet. I don’t think they’ll be dominant in 10 years either. Significant inroads, though? Quite likely, I’d say.

I thought you wouldn't lol

 

[HSTEd]

I'm not so sure that road building is needed.

For example CPRE have suggested that rather than road building we could use the same money to create a rural bus network which has an hourly bus service from 06:00 to 00:00 to every village in the UK.Th

The report suggests something along the lines of 3 billion pounds per annum in perpetuity to support that system.
I have some sympathy for htis, but at the same time we clearly have an inadequate road network in many key areas.

For example, that the main road from Manchester to Sheffield is a single carriageway with hairpin bends and running through numerous villages is just silly.

 

[Nottingham59]

What you've quoted backs the first assertion up. The second is mere crystal ball on both our parts, but I'll bet you £1k, inflation-linked, if you want that autonomous vehicles will not be the dominant mode of transport (or even road transport) in 10 years time.

I think there may be a mis-match in timescales here. I agree with you that AVs will not the dominant in 10 years time, but they will be widespread in many cities across the world in that timeframe.

The important thing, I would argue, is that AV technology will be dominant well within the lifetime of railway infrastructure investments, which is typically around 60 years. Any investment decisions made today that are based on the assumption that AV won't happen are likely to be wasteful. Decisions about the future shape of the GB rail network need to take account of the changes that AV will bring to road transport.

And, more controversially for this forum, the technology that is used to power AV taxis in Phoenix without a safety driver is already good enough to drive autonomous trains using an external video feed and reliable location data. But I predict the rail industry will bury its head in the sand over this one, for many years yet.

 

[slowroad]

UK cities will likely be even harder than the US. Most of the roads in the UK were built before the word 'road' even existed.

I thought you wouldn't lol

Actually my age means that you probably wouldn’t be able to collect anyhow!

 

[styles]

I think there may be a mis-match in timescales here. I agree with you that AVs will not the dominant in 10 years time, but they will be widespread in many cities across the world in that timeframe.

The important thing, I would argue, is that AV technology will be dominant well within the lifetime of railway infrastructure investments, which is typically around 60 years. Any investment decisions made today that are based on the assumption that AV won't happen are likely to be wasteful. Decisions about the future shape of the GB rail network need to take account of the changes that AV will bring to road transport.

And, more controversially for this forum, the technology that is used to power AV taxis in Phoenix without a safety driver is already good enough to drive autonomous trains using an external video feed and reliable location data. But I predict the rail industry will bury its head in the sand over this one, for many years yet.

Phoenix AZ is not comparable to the City of London.

And as noted higher up, AZ has had to cancel various autonomous vehicle schemes precisely because they don't work, so it's not even a good example.

Like I say, it'll probably happen at some point, but the idea that they're going to be a dominant force any time soon I believe to be naive.

 

[Dr Hoo]

I'm not so sure that road building is needed.

For example CPRE have suggested that rather than road building we could use the same money to create a rural bus network which has an hourly bus service from 06:00 to 00:00 to every village in the UK.

Could you clarify what the generally accepted figure for ‘road building’ in the UK per year actually is? Obviously we need to make sure that we don’t inadvertently include funds needed for operating, maintaining and renewing the existing network.

That will give a clear indication of how much would be taken from capital budgets and switched to ‘subsidy’ as necessary for the proposed bus system.

 

[778]

And, more controversially for this forum, the technology that is used to power AV taxis in Phoenix without a safety driver is already good enough to drive autonomous trains using an external video feed and reliable location data. But I predict the rail industry will bury its head in the sand over this one, for many years yet.

Do you think other countries will have autonomous trains before we do?

 

[Krokodil]

AVs really aren't suitable for busy cities. For the simple reason that cars in general aren't suitable for busy cities which is why many of cities are stripping out lanes and removing parking spaces.

Where they could actually be useful is in the sort of rural areas which cannot sustain a fixed bus route and are therefore served only by on-demand buses. AVs could reduce the operating costs and allow for longer service hours.

However when AV's actually get trialled on rural roads, I want to set up a tennis umpire's seat overlooking a country lane just to spectate as they try and figure out who needs to reverse to a passing space.

 

[aron2smith]

I'm not so sure that road building is needed.

For example CPRE have suggested that rather than road building we could use the same money to create a rural bus network which has an hourly bus service from 06:00 to 00:00 to every village in the UK.

That would be a game changer for public transport, as it would be possible to get everywhere. Yes it may take a long time but it would be possible.

With an aging population it would mean that fewer people would become isolated when they can no longer drive themselves.

Likewise, others have suggested that for the cost of the all the upgrades to the A303 we could redouble and electrify the West of England Line through Salisbury down to Exeter.

That would allow 2tph (with Crossrail 2 it could be upgraded to 3tph), make it so the lines are bi directional and the potential to have a faster service than currently exists could mean that in some situations it's at least no slower than the GWR services to get to Exeter.

For a real game changer you could even extend the Basingstoke Stoppers (2tph currently, 3tph post Crossrail 2) to Yeovil and then the "existing" services would only need to serve Andover, Salisbury and Yeovil at the Eastern end and (due to the Devon Metro) Honiton, Exeter Central and Exeter St Davids at the western end. Yet the other stations over those sections would still see a better service than they currently do.

There's times when I take (due to the activities of my children) about 2 hours of my time to take my children to do an activity, if there was a viable bus route (as they are of a suitable age) I wouldn't need to do that, giving me more time.

Cus to services (non transport) mean that people have to step in to fill in the gaps. For example, locally the settlement I live in organises a litter pick. The crazy thing is, due to the size of the place the extra cost in council taxes to have a full time handyman who would do much more than just the picking up of litter would likely be less than £10 per household (and probably less than that as they could do tasks which are currently given to paid contractors).

I fully agree with you. I really love the idea of 'every village, every hour' and wish we could get a government that would take that seriously. It would need the renationalisation of buses, rather than franchising to work effectively though. I live in a town of 50000 that really acts like an extension to London and even we don't get buses till Midnight! Historically we did when London Transport came out to Cheshunt though. Privatisation severed the services! It would be enormously beneficial to undo the damage.

And every case you say about, it's always political choices and priorities. If our government took climate change seriously, it'd be choosing to electrify the West of England Line over widening the A303 as one of dozens of examples. Really we need to improve bus and train and introduce tram and metro to the point, car ownership is no longer seen as essential in most places and then overall car ownership goes down. Right now car ownership is essential far too often and high car ownership is making residential areas unpleasant areas to live now. It needs substantial investment and a proper change of mindset in local and national government, but at some point whatever we are doing now will not be tenable and public transport will have to be made usable for most journeys in as many places as possible.

And I agree austerity has made many public services and councils ridiculously inefficient and wasteful. Wasn't for nothing that the council did these services in the first place.

 

[Krokodil]

Do you think other countries will have autonomous trains before we do?

I've been on two unmanned metros in the last few days. Milan and Lyon. I haven't paid much attention to the latter, but I noticed that on the Milan system there was a continuous catwalk alongside the train. No gaps, like the third rail it would swap sides where there were junctions. Every few yards there was emergency equipment.

If you've not got a member of staff onboard then you need to give serious consideration to how the passengers can evacuate themselves safely in an emergency, with no direction from staff. The Crossrail core has a catwalk, but there is no chance of it ever being viable to rebuild Victorian tunnels.