The strategies are written. Now the transport industry must deliver.
In the past 12 months, the sector has received the Transport AI Action Plan (June 2025), the Transport Data Action Plan (March 2026) and Better Connected, the long-awaited integrated national transport strategy (April 2026). Transport progress is all around us – autonomous taxis are carrying passengers in London. Great British Railways, the planned national UK railway company, is taking shape.
All of these developments should be welcomed. But as I wrote when the AI Action Plan landed, any plan’s impact depends on execution. The test for the next three years is whether these documents become services people notice. Here are the eight trends I expect to shape that.
1. Data sharing becomes infrastructure in its own right
The Data Action Plan makes APIs the expected way to share transport data. It also commits Department for Transport (DfT) to a Transport Data Ontology that maps how datasets and terms relate across modes. For me, this is the least glamorous and most important part of the agenda.
Real-time journey planning, network optimisation and digital twins all depend on it. A digital twin is only as good as the data feeding it, a point our recent paper with the Open Data Institute makes at length. The same plan warns of a widening gap between digitally mature authorities and smaller local bodies. Closing that gap matters as much as any headline technology.
2. Infrastructure becomes intelligent
For years, transport organisations have invested heavily in physical assets. Increasingly, they are investing in the intelligence that sits on top of them. Sensors, connected assets, computer vision and real-time monitoring now show operators what is happening across their networks minute by minute.
The bigger prize comes from joining operational technology, the systems that run signals, roadside devices and depots, with the information technology behind planning, maintenance and customer services. Bring the two together and operators can predict failures, target maintenance and fix problems before passengers notice them. Infrastructure is becoming as much a digital asset as a physical one.
3. One journey, one interface
Better Connected puts simpler payments and joined-up information across modes at its heart. Rail is moving first. The planned GBR app will act as a one-stop shop for tickets, train times and Delay Repay. DfT extended Northern’s digital pay-as-you-go trials to all travellers on its two trial routes in August.
The harder question is local. Will councils or other local authorities have the data platforms, skills and sustained funding to plug buses, trams and active travel into that experience? Short bursts of funding will not build integrated systems.
4. Automation arrives, carefully
This September, Uber and Wayve launched autonomous rides in London. Fewer than 20 cars are in service at launch, with a licensed operator on board, and regulatory hurdles remain before fully driverless operation. Wider rollout under the Automated Vehicles Act is expected from the second half of next year.
That cautious start is sensible, and it also gives public bodies a short window to prepare. Who can access the data these vehicles generate? How will authorities oversee services they do not run? Will accessibility be designed in from the start? The UK has a chance to lead on governance, provided the questions are answered before scale arrives.
5. Legacy modernisation becomes unavoidable
Many of the sector’s ambitions for AI, automation and integrated journeys rest on systems that were never designed to share data or run at today’s scale. Across transport, organisations carry decades of technology debt. That debt sits in corporate IT and in the operational technology that runs physical networks: signalling, control centres, ticketing and roadside equipment.
Modernisation is now a prerequisite for delivering policy, and it belongs on the board agenda as much as the IT roadmap. The organisations that move fastest will modernise platforms, operational systems and data foundations while keeping essential services running. That is hard to do, and it rewards careful, phased planning over big-bang replacement.
6. Resilience drives technology investment
Passengers rarely care whether a service runs on AI, cloud or a digital twin. They care whether it works and runs on time. Recent air traffic control outages, rail disruption and extreme weather have shown how quickly a single failure can ripple across a network, and how much passengers and the economy pay for it.
Climate pressures, congestion and cyber threats are all rising. Cyber deserves particular attention. The weak point is often a supplier or a shared system. As transport becomes more connected, the attack surface grows with it. The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will extend regulation deeper into the supply chain. Procurement teams should not wait for it.
The programmes that prove their value will be the ones that improve reliability, reduce disruption and help organisations recover faster when things go wrong.
7. AI moves from pilot to production
McKinsey found that only 1% of organisations say their AI investments have reached maturity. Transport is no exception. The projects that scale tend to be focused and practical, not headline-grabbing.
In our work with National Highways, an AI assistant has cut the time from question to answer from hours to seconds. AI also checks cost estimates before peer review, so fewer gaps reach reviewers. Neither example is glamorous. Both save time every week, and that is what earns the trust to go further.
8. Capability becomes the real constraint
Every trend above depends on people inside public bodies who can own, run and improve these systems. At the same time, more responsibility is moving to combined authorities, transport authorities and regional bodies.
The Data Action Plan acknowledges the skills gap. Many organisations are restructuring at the same time as they modernise. Technology that leaves no capability behind creates dependency, not progress.
Where the industry should focus in the next 12 months
Fix the plumbing first
Agree data standards, publish APIs and assign clear data ownership before buying the next platform.
Make room to experiment
Now is the time to test new ideas and emerging technology in a controlled way. Start small, measure honestly and stop what doesn’t work quickly. Not every pilot will succeed, and that is fine, provided the lessons are captured and shared. The government’s own “Scan, Pilot, Scale” approach gives teams the permission to do exactly that.
Buy for capability
Write knowledge transfer and documentation into contracts, so internal teams can run what partners deliver. Push for procurement routes nimble enough to let smaller innovators in.
Treat suppliers as part of your attack surface
Build defence in depth and clear contractual obligations into how digital services are bought and managed.
The UK has written good plans
The risk is that we lead on strategy while others pull ahead in practice. An intelligent, joined-up transport system is too important, and too exciting, to let that happen.
