LISTEN: The future of transport – with Michael Dnes

The only picture of the event I could find, pinched from Aladair Reisner. I’m not sure what I’m doing with my arms either.

Last night I had the enormous pleasure of hosting my friend Michael Dnes at the second ever Odds and Ends of History live event.

We were there, with a packed audience, to discuss the future of transport – which is important, given that Michael believes the next 25 years could be just as transformative as the late 19th and earth 20th century, when the car was first invented.

The conversation touched on a range of issues, from the imminent arrival of autonomous vehicles, the need for road pricing (and why we really need to sort it out now, before it becomes a problem), what’s going on with HS2 – and whether the war in Ukraine might herald a revolution in drone delivery here in Britain.

So please do have a listen!¹

Michael Dnes is a former roads, rail and technology specialist at the Department of Transport, and who today is Head of Transport Policy at the consultancy Stonehaven.

I also strongly recommend following him on Twitter and Bluesky, where he regularly posts amazing threads like this one on the notorious bat tunnel. He’s also authored some fascinating stuff for Stonehaven, like this on how to build stuff in the era of populism. The piece he wrote for Works in Progress on London’s lost ringways is brilliant too.

NEXT EVENT! Tickets to the next Odds and Ends of History event are available now. On February 25th I’m talking to Alexander Iosad, Director of Government Innovation Policy at the Tony Blair Institute about How AI can (maybe) fix the government. So come and nerd out with us in person!

ALSO! If you enjoy hearing my voice and not just reading my words, then make sure you go and subscribe to What’s Happening Now, the podcast I make with my comedian friend Sam Hampson. It’ll be back soon for a new series!

1. Nerd note: If you press play, you’ll notice that the audio sounds incredible - almost like it was recorded in a studio. We recorded the audio on a pair of those portable Rode microphones that seemingly every YouTuber has these days – but then I ran the recording through an AI post-production filter on a website called Auphonic, and… holy shit has audio production technology improved since I was producing a podcast 15 years ago.