The Government is promising to pin its transport policy around technology and to make the UK a leader in future mobility and decarbonisation.

Roads Minister George Freeman told the Transport Ticketing Global event in London his focus is on three-Ds – Disconnection, Digitalisation and Decarbonisation.  This involves getting public transport more widely available to people, and using digitalisation to reduce carbon emissions for transport.

He said that, for example, using digital signalling on the trains increases rail capacity by a fifth without the need to build more lines.  He talked about embracing Mobility as a Service, AI and machine learning could do if we really embrace it.

He added that he wants to get the technological solutions now commonplace in London, such as contactless ticketing, to the whole of the country and also promised a “better deal for buses” – saying the bus network is “not longer to be the rump of 1950s Britain”.