As 2026 begins, transport planners may find themselves at a familiar but uncomfortable juncture. After several years of consultations, interim funding settlements and policy promises, a number of long-awaited decisions are finally expected to land.

 

The fact the Government is entering its second full year, languishing at third or fourth place in the polls but defiantly intent on proving the difference a Labour administration can make, might be a cause for optimism that 2026 is the year of delivery. However, the bleak economic and fiscal outlook suggests expectations may need to be tempered, even as frustration grows across the profession at the gap between ambition and delivery.

 

Instead, the biggest political bombshells may come outside of Westminster, as Reform UK anticipate strong results in Wales and much of England, while the Green Party looks set to perform well in many of the London Boroughs. Whatever happens, the Transport Planning Society will continue to make the case for integrated, evidence-led transport planning that puts people and place first throughout the new year.

 

 

Perhaps the most significant development of 2026 will be the publication of the Integrated National Transport Strategy.

 

The Integrated National Transport Strategy has been a long time coming. Its stated aim is to address fragmentation across modes, better align transport with housing and economic development, and give local and regional leaders greater ability to shape their networks. These are objectives that most transport planners would recognise as necessary rather than aspirational. The absence of a clear national framework has contributed to disjointed decision-making for years.

 

The challenge is not whether the strategy says the right things, but whether it changes the conditions under which planning and delivery take place. Previous national strategies have often set out sensible principles while leaving funding, governance and appraisal largely untouched. If that pattern is repeated, the impact of the strategy will be limited, however coherent the narrative.

 

Much will depend on whether the strategy confronts the gap between capital investment and day-to-day operation. Recent fiscal events have continued to protect large infrastructure schemes in headline terms, but revenue funding remains under sustained pressure. For transport planners, this imbalance is not theoretical. It affects whether services can be maintained, whether networks are resilient, and whether integration is more than an ambition on paper.

The Political and Economic Reality

 

While the Government and transport planners are in harmony on the matter of integration, the conditions in which planners are expected to operate remain tight, unsettled and, in some cases, increasingly contradictory.

 

There is, of course, nothing new about this context. Local authorities continue to manage shrinking revenue budgets, skills shortages and short-term funding cycles, while public transport operators are still adjusting to post-pandemic demand patterns and unstable financial models. The recent Budget has reinforced a familiar tension between policy goals and funding reality, cutting active travel funding despite its repeated endorsement in principle and its central role in public health and emissions reduction. In practice, the largest political and fiscal commitments continue to gravitate towards rail fare freezes and major road schemes such as the Lower Thames Crossing, while even at local level the dominant agenda item is often bus franchising rather than the wider conditions needed to support sustainable travel choices. Rail and bus attract sustained political attention and periodic investment announcements, but without stable long-term approaches to operating funding, fares policy or service planning. Measures such as fare freezes may be welcomed by passengers, but without secure revenue they simply displace financial pressure elsewhere, leaving those planning around these networks operating in an environment where ambition and fragility coexist uncomfortably, and sitting uneasily alongside repeated statements that walking and cycling sit at the top of the transport hierarchy.

 

 

Great British Railways is also likely to loom large over 2026, even though we are potentially years away from its final form. While radical reform is unlikely to materialise quickly, we can expect a continued drip feed of clarifications that gradually give a clearer sense of how the GBR will operate in practice.

 

Of particular interest will be the implications for land use and development around stations and railway corridors. How GBR interacts with wider legislation on planning reform, infrastructure delivery and devolution will be critical, particularly in determining whether decisions on rail investment, station development, local plans and integration are taken together.

 

 

The local political context in 2026 adds a further layer of complexity, not simply because of who may gain seats, but because of the level of political divergence that is now emerging across local government. The May elections are likely to add to an already varied local political landscape, with transport policy in some areas shaped more strongly by local political priorities than by a consistent national direction. In London, stronger Green representation in a number of Boroughs could reinforce support for active travel, road space reallocation and public transport investment, but may also introduce new tensions with City Hall over pace, priorities and trade-offs, particularly where local political pressure pushes beyond what Transport for London can realistically achieve.

 

The potential for Reform UK to emerge as the largest party in Wales would represent a more fundamental shift. Policies such as the 20mph speed limit, which have already become politically charged, could be revisited or reversed, raising questions about the longevity of sweeping interventions that rely on long-term consistency to deliver safety and behaviour change.

 

More broadly, the prospect of governments, councils and combined authorities swinging between parties with diametrically opposed views on regulation, traffic restraint and public investment every electoral cycle raises a difficult question for the profession. Transport planning is inherently long term: networks, land-use patterns and travel behaviour do not fit neatly into electoral timetables. Where political control shifts repeatedly, planners may find themselves asked to reverse course or restart programmes before impacts can be properly assessed.

 

For the profession, this underlines a central challenge for 2026 and beyond. How can we sustain consistent, evidence-led transport planning in an environment of increasingly volatile local politics? The task is not to insulate transport from democratic change, but to ensure that long-term objectives around safety, accessibility, sustainability and inclusion are not continually reset by short-term political cycles.

English Devolution: The Direction of Travel

 

The steady drumbeat of devolution is set to continue, even if progress has been uneven and piecemeal. The creation of several new combined authorities has been delayed until 2028, and the impact of most recently-created mayoralties has hardly been transformative. But the more mature combined authorities like Manchester and the West Midlands demonstrate the potential of English devolution, and the overall direction of travel remains clear.

 

 

Much of what transport planners will be doing in 2026 will feel familiar: making difficult prioritisation decisions, managing uncertainty, and defending evidence-based approaches while trying to align long-term outcomes with short-term pressures. What feels different is the extent to which the gap between policy ambition and funding reality is becoming harder to overlook.

 

There are still grounds for cautious optimism. A national transport strategy offers a valuable framework for achieving joined-up decision-making, and devolution continues to provide opportunities for place-based solutions where it is matched with real power and funding certainty. Professional consensus around integration and sustainability is also stronger than it was a decade ago.