Are Generalists a Problem in Transport Leadership?

Key takeaways:

• Many public services value generalists who know how to ask smart questions over domain experts.
• In transport, this is a problem because many of the issues are counterintuitive and require domain knowledge.
• This is less of a problem if transport systems simply needed to continue doing the same old thing. However, they need to make substantial changes to tackle congestion, emissions and mode shift among other things.
• Many teams at the top of transport organisations are not well equipped to support generalists, often being fragmented with only partial domain expertise.
• This situation is exacerbated by the tendency for increased political interference in the selection of heads of transport departments, prioritising political fit over technical competence.
• In the long term, we need to provide training and job opportunities for our most promising leaders in transport to establish a strong pipeline of candidates for leadership positions.
• In the shorter term, we need to identify the gaps in transport leadership teams' domain knowledge and provide the training and support they need to fill those gaps, leveraging academics and transport experts.

What next?

Do you have any knowledge gaps in your transport leadership team? How will you fill them? Are you building a strong pipeline of future leaders?

Introduction

Picture this: A seasoned public sector leader with an impressive track record in health and education takes the helm of a major transport department. They're smart, experienced, and know how to ask the right questions; or so they think. When presented with a business case for a new road project, they check all the familiar boxes: positive benefit-cost ratio, manageable implementation risks, adequate funding. The project gets the green light.

But what they didn't ask about was induced demand. They didn't consider how the new road might actually worsen congestion across the wider network. They didn't question whether this investment aligned with strategic goals around mode shift and emissions reduction. These aren't obvious questions; they're the kind that only come from a deep understanding of how transport systems actually work.

Why transport is different

Many sectors benefit from generalist leadership. Fresh eyes can challenge professional groupthink and ask incisive questions that domain experts miss. But transport operates by rules that defy common sense, where obvious solutions often backfire spectacularly.

Induced demand trips up nearly everyone outside transport. See a congested road? Build another lane. It's logical, intuitive, and wrong. Adding road capacity encourages more driving, quickly filling the new lane and making the overall system more congested than before. Yet, this counterintuitive principle remains invisible to most generalists, regardless of their intelligence.

Parking presents another trap. Full car parks seem to cry out for more spaces. But additional parking induces more driving, worsening congestion while undermining public transport and active mobility. The real solution, pricing parking appropriately, is unknown to most people (economists excepted) without transport expertise.

Freight offers a third example. When trucking companies request approval for larger vehicles, their logic sounds compelling: bigger trucks carry more cargo, improving productivity and reducing the total number of vehicles. What's not obvious is how this undermines rail freight, often a far more efficient mode for long-distance cargo movement. We end up subsidising the less efficient option.

Even transport professionals struggle with these concepts. Plenty of road engineers still believe one more lane will solve congestion problems, and many transport experts lack an understanding of strategic asset management principles. If trained transport experts find these concepts challenging, what chance does a generalist have?

When generalists might work (and when they don't)

If transport systems were on the right track, generalist leadership might suffice. A capable administrator could maintain momentum along an existing trajectory, making incremental improvements while keeping the wheels turning.

But that's not where we are. Transport systems worldwide need a fundamental transformation. We must slash emissions, shift people from cars to sustainable modes, integrate transport with land use planning, and redirect investment from roads to public and active transport. These changes require leaders who understand not just that change is needed, but how transport systems respond to different interventions.

Defenders of generalist leadership often argue that good leaders build strong teams and listen to expert advice. In theory, this sounds reasonable. In practice, many transport departments struggle with fragmented leadership teams, siloed thinking, and competing perspectives, such as between road builders and strategic planners. By the time a generalist develops sufficient understanding of transport systems, they've likely already made costly mistakes that could have been avoided.

The problem is worsening as senior public service roles become increasingly politicised. Leaders are often chosen for their perceived political alignment rather than technical competence. This trend undermines the professional expertise that effective transport leadership requires.

Some governance models offer hope. London's approach separates political and technical leadership, with a Deputy Mayor for Transport overseeing the political aspects and a Transport Commissioner providing technical expertise. This division has contributed to London's relative success in transport transformation.

What kind of transport expert do we need?

Not every transport professional can effectively lead system-wide change. A rail engineer who lacks understanding of policy development, or a public transport operations expert who is unfamiliar with active transport and induced demand, may struggle with the broad systems thinking that effective transport leadership requires.

The most effective transport leaders combine deep technical knowledge with an understanding of how different transport modes interact, how transport connects with land use, and how various interventions create ripple effects throughout the system.

Building better transport leadership

The solution requires both long-term and short-term strategies.

Long-term development: We need to identify high-potential transport professionals early and provide them with broad, system-wide training. Rather than allowing specialists to remain in narrow silos, we should deliberately rotate promising leaders through different areas of transport, giving them exposure to policy development, operations, infrastructure delivery, and strategic planning. This creates a pipeline of well-rounded leaders who combine deep technical knowledge with broad systems thinking.

Short-term gap-filling: Existing leadership teams should conduct honest self-assessments of their domain knowledge, facilitated by someone with comprehensive transport expertise, perhaps a respected academic or broad knowledge transport expert(s). This assessment can identify specific training needs and support requirements.

Any transport leadership team should collectively understand these critical areas:

• Transport strategy, planning and policymaking
• Public transport operations and fare setting
• Multimodal thinking and mode integration
• Roads, parking and induced demand
• Effective active transport design and implementation
• Integrated transport and land use planning
• Transport project management and engineering
• Freight and logistics, especially intermodal relationships
• Technological change and emerging mobility options
• Transport funding models and commercialisation
• Strategic asset management

(Let me know your views on this list)

Leaders don't need to be experts in every field, but they need sufficient understanding to ask the right questions, recognise interdependencies, and make informed decisions. Combined with general leadership capabilities in areas like legal compliance, financial management, and human resources, this knowledge base provides the foundation for effective transport leadership.

Conclusion

The transport sector stands at a critical juncture. With mounting pressure to reduce emissions, tackle congestion, and fundamentally reshape how people and goods move through our cities, we cannot afford leadership that lacks the domain expertise to navigate these complex challenges.

While generalist leaders have served many sectors well, transport's counterintuitive dynamics, from induced demand to the unintended consequences of parking policies, require leaders who understand the system they're tasked with transforming. The stakes are simply too high, and the decisions too consequential, to rely on learning by expensive trial and error.

The path forward requires action on two fronts. In the long term, we must invest in developing transport leaders who combine deep technical knowledge with broad systems thinking, creating a pipeline of experts ready to tackle transport challenges. In the short term, existing leadership teams must honestly assess their knowledge gaps and commit to filling them through targeted training and expert support.

Transport systems shape our cities, our environment, and our quality of life. They deserve leaders who understand their complexity and can guide them towards a better future.