Full coverage: Public transport

Free bus and rail tickets are not on the table. Their discussion has helped pave the way for investment in better services and restrictions on car usage, however.

Six years on from founding CitySwift, Brian O’Rourke and Alan Farrelly explain how they developed AI to optimise bus fleets, sold it to the UK’s major operators and are now going international – having raised funds from A-list investors including Ryanair’s founding family along the way.

Covid-19 has smashed transport companies, and social distancing will make many of them non-viable. Governments have rushed to the aid of a small number of favoured companies. Could the end result be a re-nationalisation of the transport industry?

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the future of the state’s finances, tendering to build and run the capital’s first underground rail system is ramping up.