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Denise It is obviously a topical and interesting subject, but perhaps in all this we can address filling the huge hole in the 10 year transport plan agenda - managing-out travel from our working practices. As such this conference should be innovative enough to offer participation without consuming resources of time, road/rail space etc and thus offer controlled link-up opportunities for video conference facilities which many institutions now have and offer for hire etc, or even to allow individuals to 'attend' from personal VC terminals. There are also challenges to recognise the very different needs of pedestrians when walking as transport - very different from the 2-3 mph, take over what's left after the carriageway is defined, and don't bother about the minute added for every 50m of avoidable diversion situation which prevails in the UK. With video connection you might get PPS input from New York and other leading lights. Decent pedestrian provision and a move to allow times to be put on pedestrian signage in place of distances both challenge the ststus quo, and offer a major potential to move many short journeys made by bus & tube in a city like London, over to walking, thus releasing valuable capacity for longer trips by public transport. Sadly the PT operators have a serious perceived fear of change as it can so easily go very wrong and cost serious money, even for minor fare and t/t changes, let alon drastic measures which opt to get passengers changing between bus services, and reductions in MVR made by an interconnecting network, all of which need a method of underwriting/hand holding - bikes with/on/in buses & coaches is one such detail where a 1500% increase in catchment area is a carrot of unknown provenance, when considering how it can be implemented. Likewise cycle parking has delivered up to twice the 2012 target increase in cycle trips to many specific locations but requires the positive move of actually doing something from a minimal base level. Rural bus services also suffer from now getting town buses on services which were previously run by semi-coaches - with tales of passengers deserting when faced with over an hour on bus seating in a town quality ride vehicle, which frequently has poor reliability and performance when used on arduous rural services (compare a Stagecoach spec Volvo B10m/Alexander PS with a Typical Dennis Dart/Townbus on a rural service). We have no halfway vehicle now on offer from manufacturers to fill this gap. Even the 'new runways' study has failed to include aoptions for doing something completely different - for example linking key transcontinental departure points with high speed rail lines, which can also go directly into major cities, and reduce the clamour for short haul flights that eat into capacity. Land take, noise pollution, energy consumption etc might be considerably less damaging, and costly, and the rail links would deal with other ground transport issues Some concepts to examine - vast efforts & cost to reduce the bus or train journey times when less tha 50% of total door to door trip is actually this element of the journey - far better to cut the time taken to walk/cycle and wait with much cheaper projects - cost of getting the bus to the people, when getting the people to the bus may be more effective - draining the sea, rather than sinking the battleship. Dave Holladay Glasgow