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Is there a good Parkway station. Because, lads, Bristol Parkway ain't it...

London, where there is zero investment in infrastructure. Nothing new ever gets built. All the money going to the provinces, again...

Me, ranting at clouds: "Just put a tram down the A65 all the way to Guiseley, you cowards!"

Leeds getting a tram is still, despite the announcements, very much in my "I'll believe it when I see it" bucket. It's only been my entire life waiting. Only have to wait till 2028 to get spades in the ground. Absolutely no chance of it all going wrong before then.

Restating my "National Highways should just do all roads" opinion as local highways works are, by necessity, way down the list for a lot of LAs (and will only become more pronounced).

I joke, but if anyone on here is going to the data Community Connect North session in Manchester on Monday, give me a shout. Would be ace to meet some fellow northerners in similar roles.

Looking forward to getting out and about next week, for the first time in ages. Manchester, Nottingham, Coventry! The excitement knows no bounds... What joys do TransPennine, Northern and CrossCountry have in store for me? I am, almost, too excited for words. #CivilServiceLife

Anonymised MOT tests and results www.data.gov.uk/dataset/c63f... annual release of a big useful dataset from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (Great Britain) Data for earlier years from DfT www.data.gov.uk/dataset/e393... #transportdata #opendata

In this piece, I actually reveal some of the intriguing political shenanigans that happened behind the scenes when the new government came in, which might of interest to political people. But of course I framed the piece around the MUCH MORE EXCITING car park data platform.

We're getting used to cyber attacks that cause massive service outages, assuming every unknown number is a scam, not being able to tell what's real from a deep fake. We're walking through a digital junkyard in which nothing really does what it's meant to do, but sure, AI can make Jesus ride a prawn

Very interesting point. Safety, obviously. As long as they are demonstrably safer than today. Another q: What level of safety are we prepared to accept from AVs? How many fatalities will cause the end of the experiment? Probably very few. When we accept ~1600 deaths a year on the roads?

Exhibit 106 in the series "Dutch cannot possibly be a real language"

Urgh, the mobile version of Teams is the worst. Get a notification of a message so open the app... Hey, Teams, where's my chat? Teams: Lol, no chat for you.

NEW: Peter Kyle has had his ChatGPT prompts released under FOI. An unprecedented move, secured by @stokel.bsky.social. What does it mean? Google searches next - and some sweaty palms in Whitehall… My analysis of a rare FOI win: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Haha, this is brilliant. I mean, why wouldn't they be releasable? But also, yikes!

My train from New Street is delayed by 32 minutes meaning I've been on the platform for almost 45. My life expectancy is now two years shorter from all the fumes.

I've often suspected these fesses are fake, and this confirms it. Why would anyone willingly take a train via Castleford (full stop), especially when there are other Northern trains that are, at least, 25 minutes quicker?

Nationalise Spoons!

"including the £4.1m cost of hiring and then dismissing former sporting director Dan Ashworth within five months." Yikes. That is mental.

Huh? Still a bit of time before GenAI makes us all redundant...

Very "Lionel Hutz" feel to this Northern notice...

100%

This should be released for free as open data.

I can believe this. Same with wages chat. I get lots of responses to job adverts which often fall down at the offer stage.

Oh wow. Southampton really Leeds'ed it.

Data & AI Jobs in Leeds!

Tracking the Buses in England by @OpenInnovates open-innovations.org/blog/2025-01... We've got data for everywhere -2 weeks in September 2024- but the tool only works for The North West and Yorkshire & The Humber - hit us up if you want to do more with this data, infrastructure & tools.

Interesting insights from this survey in Leeds. Topping the list of journeys people would find hard without a car are orbital ones: “Radial journeys in and out of the city centre are easy. Anything vaguely circumferential is impossible unless you go into the city and out again.” Same in Bristol.

And this is my fear, that many in the public sector will neglect investing in the foundations and leap straight to implementation. You need good data and good governance (as well as good security) to make best use of AI. These things take time, and they need investment.

Sooooooo many hours playing this game. One of the best soundtracks ever.

The biggest question raised here must be: who on earth is choosing to drive in London, the city with by far the best public transport system in Britain? me in the Guardian on the most congested city in Europe, apparently

Is open data dead? TfL were the bastion, the exemplar, for open data. Is that over now?

One good thing about being a civil servant is that you can see what your equivalent armed forces rank would be. I think I'm going to start referring to myself as a Group Captain.

New Year, New You?? I'm hiring for a Senior Data Architect to work with me at DVSA. Help me to deliver an ambitious data strategy which invests in good foundations whilst getting the Agency ready for the future with whatever autonomous vehicles and AI can throw at us.

The key to winning any war is preparation...

FOI releases from 2003/4! Bahaha... Please excuse me whose I go crumble into dust.

The full-time minimum wage from April is about £24,000 a year. This is absolutely a good thing. But I suspect that's going to start to cause some real ructions in badly-paid 'skilled' and 'professional' jobs – not least journalism, where early career jobs paying under £30k are *still* common.

Was in Bridlington for the weekend. Would be so much better if it was better served by trains. 2 hours to get to either York or Sheffield?? Leeds to Scarborough - 1 hr 18! Part of the reason Scarborough gets twice the number of tourists?

In Bridlington for the weekend which reminds me that the only acceptable donuts come from the coast!

This. But not just London. I guess a lot of people don't understand that Brits set themselves down somewhere for Christmas and don't really move. As Jonny also says, definitely a cultural thing for as few people as possible to work so a full service isn't really necessary.

The kids are asleep and I have just demolished a large plate of delice de Bourgogne and some rillettes. Merry (almost) Christmas!

This implies the existence of Aldi-style knock offs... Valiantor? Courageoun?

That looks like it's going to encourage vehicles to get right up to the give way line and across the crossing... Hopefully the trials show these new style junctions are no less safe.

What I like most about this article, which is as good as everyone says, is the theory put forward that Humphrey Smith was radicalised by the A64 Tadcaster By-pass. www.theguardian.com/news/2024/de...

My Dad's firm did the accounts for Sam Smiths. He told us some great stories about the weird and wonderful things Humphrey would get up to.

Always amuses me that the discussion around HS2 is around "blight on the landscape". This is my view from our office window - the main line from Leeds taking trains to York, Newcastle and Edinburgh... You can barely see it! Far less obtrusive than the bit of city centre loop...

Really good post and use of the data. Nice to have so many options etc etc grumble grumble

Fantastic bin chat. Leeds has just (in August) allowed glass to go in our recycling bins. Revolutionary - no more walk of shame! Still have no food waste collection though so it all goes in general waste. So, yes, more bins council? Or should Westminster decide what we do?

The problem is, as with many car related things, the sell. #waronmotorists