Rail change, heard from the inside.
What Moves Us is a practical transport conversation rooted in UK rail and the people trying to change it. Recent episodes move between Heathrow Express supplier access, Network Rail innovation, mobile call recording, data and interoperability, user experience, and the policy effects of nationalization.
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What Moves Us follows the human side of transport through the working language of UK rail, innovation, suppliers, and policy change. The show is grounded in practical conversations rather than abstract transport theory. Recent episodes look at Rail Live in Madrid, the Heathrow Express Supplier Challenge, mobile call recording for safety-critical rail communications, innovation inside Network Rail, corporate experimentation, workplace absence, and the future shape of rail. The connective tissue is not a single campaign or headline. It is the messy process of getting useful ideas through large transport systems. The show often asks who has the authority, information, budget, or patience to move an idea forward. That gives the conversations a grounded feel. A supplier pitch is discussed in terms of access to the railway. AI and ticketing are tied back to memory, interface design, and the limits of text-heavy answers. Network Rail innovation becomes a question of feedback, evidence from previous trials, and respect for people already under pressure. Heathrow Express is discussed through capacity, service, infrastructure, rolling stock, and the consequences of changing rail ownership. The tone is friendly and informal, with enough digression to feel like colleagues talking between meetings. It is also specific. Names, organizations, and acronyms appear because the show lives close to the rail industry’s working surface. The best moments come when a broad phrase like innovation is forced into a practical test: who is involved, what has already been tried, what can be changed, and how fast the system can learn. The show’s recent conversations also make room for adjacent workplace and care issues when they affect employers and staff. That gives the transport focus a wider human edge. What Moves Us suits a listener who wants to understand how transport decisions feel from inside networks, member groups, supplier challenges, and operational constraints. It does not flatten rail into a simple success-or-failure story. It shows change as a sequence of conversations, permissions, experiments, frustrations, and occasional openings.
Made for: Suits a listener who follows UK rail, transport policy, supplier innovation, and the practical barriers between a good idea and a working service. It is especially well matched to someone who prefers operational detail over headline commentary.
What sets it apart: The show’s edge is its proximity to working rail conversations: supplier challenges, Network Rail innovation, safety communications, ticketing UX, and member engagement all appear as live practical problems. It feels like transport policy heard from inside the room, not after it has been polished for public release.
What moves us? Transport experts Johannah Randall & Liam Henderson discuss the human side of transport. Looking at the impact of various transport decisions and seeing where policy has got us today.
An empty station behind a wall at Heathrow Terminal 5: your kind of infrastructure rabbit hole.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical rail-tech discussion about why better data still has to fit human memory.
Rail Live Madrid gives What Moves Us a clear way into the data and interface challenges behind rail travel. Liam Henderson and Hayden Sutherland use the event debrief to focus on a practical question: how complex ticket information can be made usable when booking systems present…
A grounded look at Heathrow Express's supplier challenge and the capacity and operating realities behind it.
Heathrow Express offers a practical look at how a direct airport rail service is inviting supplier ideas while staying close to its current operating reality.
A grounded look at how rail contractors are preparing for mobile-call recording requirements due next March.
Rail mobile-call recording is framed as a practical compliance problem rather than a technology pitch. Pipcall is developing a recording solution for requirements due next March, while contractor Myles Olcock weighs how it could work in everyday rail arrangements.
A grounded look at how corporate process can quietly reshape the value of an idea.
On What Moves Us, Johanna and Liam speak with Philip Oliver, managing partner of Eureka Europe, about innovation as an institutional problem: what happens to ideas before they ever reach a real test.
Rail Live Madrid is the setting for Liam Henderson and Hayden Sutherland's discussion of agentic AI, rail data, and interoperability.
Heathrow Express strategy lead Chris Jones uses this What Moves Us episode to frame the December 9 Supplier Challenge around three concrete problems: staff access, service differentiation, and first-and-last-mile travel.
What Moves Us talks with Johan from Pipcall and contractor Miles Olcock about a March rail rule that will require trackside mobile and verbal communications to be recorded.
Tara Walsh says Network Rail's Innovation Acceleration Forum exists to move supplier ideas faster through standards, procurement, and internal routing.
Johanna and Liam interview Philip Ponserty-Borgo Oliver of Eureka Europe on What Moves Us about moving from a single 'Eureka' moment to innovation that can be learned.
What Moves Us interviews Antonio Ribeiro, founder and CEO of Yertle, about supporting employees whose childcare or adult-care arrangements disrupt work.
What Moves Us examines where UK rail technology needs to change, with Liam and Johanna arguing that the industry often commissions improved versions of existing systems instead of broader railway platforms.
What Moves Us examines whether the current period of rail reform, government technology policy, and financial pressure creates an opening for start-ups.
What Moves Us: Skills Beyond Scale examines a Skills Beyond Scale report on digital capabilities in small rail-sector companies and their supply chains.
The hosts discuss their festive break and preview an upcoming interview about AI and cybersecurity in the rail industry.
Transport experts discuss the uncertainty and disappointment around UK rail investment and policy at the Tory party conference.
Interview with Johan Behen of Green Furniture Concept about transport demand recovery in Sweden post-pandemic.