There is a growing recognition across the transport industry that the way we move people and goods is changing fundamentally. Much of the focus, understandably, has been on the vehicles themselves: electric cars and vans, increasingly electrified bus fleets, the emerging transition in freight and the infrastructure required to charge them. There has also been considerable attention on technology, from charging networks and smart systems to digital modelling and new approaches to managing transport demand. All of this is important, but I increasingly believe that we are in danger of focusing too heavily on the visible part of the transition while underestimating one of the less visible constraints that will determine whether much of it can actually happen: the availability of electricity in the right place, at the right scale and at the right time.
I was reminded of this recently at Connected Britain, where I had the opportunity to sit on a panel discussing the future of transport and infrastructure. The panel reinforced many of the issues increasingly occupying the transport sector, but it was actually walking around the main exhibition hall afterwards that provided the stronger signal for me. Across conversations with people working in transport, energy, technology, infrastructure and development, there was a common thread running through many otherwise very different discussions. Energy and transport are becoming increasingly difficult to separate. Whether the conversation was about electric vehicles, public transport, freight, charging infrastructure, digital signals and systems, new development or the wider infrastructure required to support economic growth, the availability, capacity and resilience of the electricity system kept finding its way into the discussion. It was a useful reminder that this is not simply a transport-sector issue and cannot be resolved by transport professionals working within the traditional boundaries of our discipline.
For me, this is one of the most important strategic issues facing Highways and Transport Authorities over the next decade. We have become accustomed to thinking about transport as a system of roads, railways, buses, cycleways, footways, stations, interchanges, depots and vehicles, supported by technology and operational systems. Increasingly, however, that system is dependent upon another infrastructure system in a way that cannot sensibly be treated as someone else’s problem. The electricity network is becoming part of the transport network, and the energy system is becoming part of transport infrastructure, whether our organisational structures and planning processes have caught up with that reality or not.
The implications are significant. Every electric car represents additional electricity demand, but the impact of millions of vehicles is much more complicated than simply adding up the energy required to charge them. A bus depot converting an entire fleet to electric operation can create a concentrated demand for electricity that is very different from dispersed domestic charging. A logistics operation moving large numbers of vans or HGVs towards electric propulsion may require substantial power at particular locations and times. A major housing development brings additional households, but also additional transport demand, commercial activity, public transport requirements and electricity consumption. An employment site, data centre, distribution hub or manufacturing facility can create similarly complex relationships between development, transport and energy.
These things have historically been planned through different systems, organisations and investment programmes. Planning Authorities have considered development. Transport Authorities have considered movement and infrastructure. Energy companies have considered network capacity and reinforcement. Developers have considered their sites and connections, while operators have considered their fleets and businesses. Government departments have developed policy and funding programmes. Each organisation can be doing its job properly while the system as a whole remains poorly coordinated, but that is becoming much harder to sustain.
There is sometimes an assumption that electrification simplifies transport’s relationship with energy because electricity is available through an established national network. In reality, electrification changes the nature of the infrastructure challenge. Instead of transporting and distributing liquid fuels through an established network of refineries, terminals, tankers and filling stations, we increasingly need to ensure that sufficient electricity generation, transmission, distribution and connection capacity exists where vehicles will actually be charged and operated.
That distinction matters because electricity capacity is geographically constrained. Having sufficient electricity generation somewhere in the country does not automatically mean that a new electric bus depot, housing development or logistics facility can obtain the power it needs in the location and timeframe required. The physical infrastructure between generation and consumption matters, as does the capacity available on the local distribution network and the timing of any reinforcement required.
This creates a very different relationship between transport planning and energy planning. A Transport Authority can identify the need for a new bus depot, determine the likely fleet requirement and secure funding for the associated transport infrastructure, only to discover later that the electricity connection cannot be delivered within the programme timeframe. A developer can have planning permission and land availability but find that the electricity connection required is subject to significant delay. A logistics operator can decide that fleet electrification is commercially and operationally sensible but discover that the power available at its depot is insufficient for the charging operation it requires.
None of these are purely energy problems. They are infrastructure delivery problems, and increasingly they are transport delivery problems.
This is why the emerging Regional Energy Strategic Planning approach being developed by the National Energy System Operator is so important. The principle behind RESP is that energy planning needs to become more strategic and more closely connected to the wider needs of regions, rather than relying solely on individual connection requests and infrastructure decisions being considered in isolation. That provides an opportunity for Transport Authorities to become much more engaged in shaping the evidence that informs regional energy planning, and we should take that opportunity seriously.
Transport Authorities need to be able to articulate much more clearly what the future transport system is likely to require. That means understanding how travel demand is expected to evolve, where housing and employment growth will occur, what public transport capacity will be needed, how bus fleets will transition, where charging infrastructure will be required, how freight patterns may change and where major transport infrastructure will need to be delivered. It also means understanding the timing of those changes rather than simply describing an end-state.
That matters because electricity infrastructure takes time to plan, consent, fund and deliver. If we continue to wait until a project reaches detailed design or procurement before engaging with the energy system, we may already be too late to influence the infrastructure required to make it work.
The strongest argument for integrating transport and energy planning is not actually electrification itself. It is the fact that development, economic growth, transport and energy are already deeply interconnected and becoming more so. A new employment area generates journeys requiring roads, public transport, walking and cycling infrastructure and potentially new freight arrangements. The development itself creates electricity demand, while businesses operating from the site may increasingly use electric vehicles and buses serving the development may require additional depot capacity and charging. If substantial logistics activity is involved, the power requirement could be considerably greater. If the development is expected to grow over twenty or thirty years, the energy requirement will change as the transport system evolves alongside it.
The same is true of housing. A large residential development is not simply a planning allocation followed by a transport assessment and an electricity connection. It is a long-term change to the geography of a community, creating demand for movement, energy, public services, employment, education and access to wider opportunities. The transport infrastructure and electricity infrastructure required to support that growth need to be understood together, particularly where the timing of one determines whether the other can operate effectively.
This is where Strategic Transport Authorities have a critical role. We should not simply be saying that transport needs more electricity. We should be able to describe what transport is going to look like, where demand will occur and when it is likely to emerge. That provides energy planners with something much more useful than a generic assumption about future electrification.
It also changes the conversation with developers. If an Authority knows that a particular area is likely to experience substantial growth in electric bus operations, freight activity and private vehicle charging over the next ten to fifteen years, that should be part of the strategic infrastructure conversation at the earliest possible stage rather than emerging as an unexpected requirement after development has already been planned.
The same principle applies to major transport schemes. A new road, public transport corridor, interchange or mobility hub should not be considered solely in terms of its transport function. We should increasingly consider the energy infrastructure required to operate it, the additional development it may unlock, the changes in travel patterns it may create and the potential electricity demand associated with those changes. This requires a different way of thinking about infrastructure sequencing. It is not enough to know that a scheme can be funded and constructed; we need to understand its dependencies and whether those dependencies can be delivered on the same timetable.
A transport scheme that cannot connect to the electricity network is not simply delayed by an energy issue. Its whole delivery programme may be affected. A housing development that cannot obtain sufficient electricity capacity is not simply facing a utility problem; its delivery, transport requirements and economic contribution may all be affected. A bus fleet transition that cannot be supported by depot infrastructure is not simply an operational problem for the bus company; it has implications for public transport strategy and the ability of the Transport Authority to deliver its wider objectives.
There is another reason why this conversation matters, and that is resilience. Recent events in global energy markets have provided a reminder that the energy system on which transport depends is exposed to geopolitical events, international supply chains and infrastructure vulnerabilities far beyond the control of Transport Authorities. The Strait of Hormuz is one example of how events thousands of miles away can rapidly become relevant to the cost, availability and security of energy in the UK.
The transport system is particularly exposed because of its dependence on energy. Diesel and petrol have historically provided the overwhelming majority of the energy used for road transport, and the implications of disruption are not confined to cars. Buses, HGVs, construction vehicles, agricultural machinery, logistics fleets and emergency services all depend on reliable energy supplies.
Electrification can reduce some of those dependencies, but it does not eliminate the underlying requirement for a secure and resilient energy system. It changes the nature of the dependency. Instead of relying predominantly on imported liquid fuels and an extensive distribution system to move those fuels to vehicles, an increasingly electrified transport system relies on the resilience and capacity of the electricity network. Energy resilience and transport resilience are therefore becoming much more closely connected.
This should encourage Authorities to think more seriously about where electricity capacity is located, how concentrated demand is managed, how critical transport facilities would operate during power disruption and what redundancy exists within the system. Bus depots, strategic charging facilities, logistics hubs and other critical transport assets may increasingly become important components of regional resilience planning. There is also a wider economic argument: transport is fundamental to the functioning of the economy, and energy is fundamental to the functioning of transport. The resilience of one cannot sensibly be considered independently from the other.
This is also a challenge for the transport profession itself. We are very good at developing schemes. We understand transport modelling, business cases, highway design, public transport planning, active travel, traffic management, programme management and project delivery. We have established methodologies and professional disciplines around these areas, and rightly so.
But some of the biggest constraints on infrastructure delivery increasingly sit outside the traditional transport project. They sit in electricity connections, land assembly, planning, development viability, skills, procurement, supply chains, public transport operating models, freight, technology and funding. A project can have a strong business case and a clear strategic rationale and still struggle because one of these external dependencies has not been addressed.
That means the transport professional of the future needs to be more of a systems thinker. We need people who can understand not only how a transport scheme works but what that scheme depends upon, what it enables and what consequences it has for other infrastructure systems. This is particularly important as we move away from thinking about individual schemes towards thinking about investment portfolios. We should increasingly understand the relationship between major programmes and the wider infrastructure environment, including what happens if one scheme is delayed, what additional infrastructure is required if development comes forward earlier than expected, where additional electricity demand will appear if fleet electrification accelerates and whether the energy system has been planned around growth enabled by major transport schemes.
These are not abstract strategic questions. They have direct consequences for whether investment can be delivered.
The industry therefore needs to become better at understanding system value rather than simply scheme value. A project may be valuable because of the transport benefits it delivers, but it may also unlock development, support employment growth, improve public transport viability, reduce operating costs, strengthen resilience or create new opportunities for energy infrastructure. Conversely, a failure to deliver one part of the system may undermine several other investments. That is a more sophisticated way of thinking about infrastructure, but it is increasingly necessary.
This cannot, however, be a one-way challenge directed at transport. Energy companies and network operators also need to engage differently with Transport Authorities. If transport is becoming a significant and increasingly predictable source of future electricity demand, understanding the geography and timing of that demand should be an important part of regional energy planning.
The traditional model in which a customer effectively arrives with a connection requirement is becoming less useful for major strategic infrastructure. For large transport systems, the need is often foreseeable many years in advance. A Transport Authority may know broadly where new development will occur, where public transport capacity will need to increase, which depots are likely to require electrification and where strategic charging infrastructure may be needed. There is an opportunity to use that information much earlier, but it requires better data sharing, better forecasting and stronger relationships between Transport Authorities and energy network companies.
Neither side will have the complete picture. Transport Authorities understand movement and development patterns but will not necessarily understand the detailed constraints of the electricity network. Energy companies understand the network but may not have a sufficiently detailed understanding of future transport demand. Bringing those perspectives together is where the value lies.
Developers have an equally important role. It is increasingly difficult to think about development viability, location and infrastructure without considering both transport and energy. A development that has good access to the strategic transport network but cannot secure sufficient electricity capacity may face significant constraints. Equally, an area with available electricity capacity but poor transport connectivity may not deliver the economic or social outcomes originally anticipated. Developers, Transport Authorities and energy companies therefore have a shared interest in getting the sequencing right. That does not mean creating another layer of bureaucracy or another planning process for its own sake; it means using existing strategic planning processes more intelligently so that major infrastructure dependencies are identified earlier and managed collectively.
There is an obvious role for national government in this. Transport, energy, housing, economic development and infrastructure are still too often considered through separate policy and funding structures. There are good reasons for having specialist departments and sector expertise, but those organisational boundaries do not reflect how infrastructure actually operates on the ground.
A region does not experience transport policy separately from energy policy. A business deciding where to invest does not necessarily distinguish between the availability of road capacity, public transport, electricity and development land. A household does not experience housing, transport and energy as independent systems. These things interact in people’s everyday lives and in the decisions made by businesses. National policy needs to reflect that reality more effectively.
The emerging RESP process provides one mechanism through which this can happen, but RESP should not be seen as a solution that energy planners deliver independently of Transport Authorities. Its value will depend in part on the quality of the regional evidence that feeds into it and the extent to which transport, development and economic growth requirements are properly represented.
Strategic Transport Authorities should therefore be active participants rather than passive consultees. We should be using our transport strategies, capital programmes, development evidence and fleet transition plans to help articulate future energy demand. We should identify infrastructure dependencies that could constrain delivery and make those dependencies visible early, while becoming more sophisticated in understanding how transport demand, development and energy consumption will interact over time.
That is a much stronger position than simply approaching an energy company when a project requires a connection.
Perhaps the biggest change required is cultural rather than technical. Infrastructure has traditionally been organised around sectors, with transport people, energy people, planning people, housing people, economic development people and digital specialists working within their own departments, companies, regulators and funding structures. That specialisation has considerable value, but it can also create blind spots.
The real-world infrastructure system does not recognise those boundaries. A new housing development does not know whether its electricity requirement belongs to an energy department or whether its transport requirement belongs to a Transport Authority. A bus depot does not become less dependent on the electricity network because the Transport Authority and energy company sit in different organisations. A logistics operator does not care which organisation is responsible for the constraint if it prevents the business from expanding. The system simply has to work.
That means the most effective infrastructure planning will increasingly be about bringing the right organisations together around the problem rather than assuming that responsibility can be neatly allocated to one organisation.
For Strategic Transport Authorities, this represents both a challenge and an opportunity. We have an increasingly important role in understanding how people and goods will move across our regions, but we need to recognise that movement is only one component of a much larger infrastructure system. Our transport strategies need to be connected to energy strategies. Our development planning needs to be connected to transport and energy capacity. Our investment programmes need to recognise infrastructure dependencies. Our conversations with developers and network companies need to start earlier. Our business cases need to understand wider system value.
Most importantly, we need to become better at articulating what the future system actually requires. The emerging RESP approach provides an important opportunity to move in this direction, but it should not be treated as the end point. The value of RESP will ultimately depend on the quality of the evidence, the strength of regional engagement and the extent to which the resulting plans influence real investment decisions.
Transport Authorities therefore need to engage seriously and early. We need to bring forward credible evidence about future transport demand and infrastructure requirements, rather than expecting energy planners to infer those requirements from high-level development assumptions. The same applies to energy companies, which need to engage with Transport Authorities early enough for network planning to influence transport strategy and infrastructure sequencing rather than simply responding to individual connection applications.
There is a significant opportunity here for the East of England and for other regions experiencing substantial economic and population growth. If we can better understand the relationship between development, transport and energy, we can make investment more predictable and potentially avoid some of the delays and costs that occur when infrastructure requirements are identified too late. That is not simply about making electrification easier. It is about making regional infrastructure planning more intelligent.
Ultimately, this is bigger than the relationship between Transport Authorities and energy companies. It is a challenge for UK plc. Businesses will increasingly need to think about transport and energy together when making investment decisions. Fleet operators need to understand the electricity requirements associated with their transition. Developers need to understand how infrastructure capacity affects the timing and viability of development. Public transport operators need to engage earlier around depot and fleet requirements. Government needs to align investment and policy frameworks. Energy companies need to understand future transport demand. Transport Authorities need to broaden their strategic field of vision.
None of these organisations can solve the problem alone. The good news is that the conversations are already beginning. My experience at Connected Britain was a useful illustration of that. The fact that people working across very different parts of the infrastructure sector are increasingly talking about energy and transport in the same conversations suggests that the industry understands the direction of travel, even if our planning and investment structures have not yet fully caught up.
The challenge now is to turn that recognition into action. For Transport Authorities, that means becoming much more active participants in regional energy planning and using the RESP process to ensure that future transport requirements are properly represented. It means developing stronger relationships with network companies, developers, operators and government and sharing the evidence required to plan infrastructure earlier. It means thinking beyond the individual scheme and understanding the wider system that the scheme sits within.
For energy companies, it means recognising that transport is becoming an increasingly important and foreseeable source of regional electricity demand and working with Transport Authorities to understand where that demand will occur and when it will emerge. For developers and businesses, it means recognising that transport and energy infrastructure are increasingly fundamental to the same investment decisions. For national government, it means creating a policy environment in which these systems can be planned together rather than leaving regions to manage the gaps between different national programmes.
For the transport profession, however, there is perhaps the greatest challenge. We need to broaden what we mean by transport planning. The profession cannot simply continue to focus on how vehicles move through a network while assuming that the infrastructure powering those vehicles sits outside our remit. As transport becomes increasingly electrified, the energy system becomes an increasingly important part of the transport system itself.
Walking around Connected Britain reinforced for me that this conversation is already happening across the infrastructure industry, even if our institutional structures and planning processes have not yet fully caught up with it. People working in transport, energy, technology, development and infrastructure are increasingly encountering the same underlying constraints from different directions. The opportunity now is to turn those parallel conversations into a genuinely integrated approach to planning.
For me, that is the real opportunity presented by RESP. It gives us the chance to move beyond treating energy as an external constraint and instead make it part of how we think about the future transport system from the outset. If we can do that properly, we can begin to understand not only what transport infrastructure we need, but what energy infrastructure needs to sit behind it, where it needs to be located, when it needs to be available and what other investment depends upon it.
The next phase of transport investment will require that broader definition of strategic planning. It will require transport professionals to understand energy, energy professionals to understand transport, and all of us to become more comfortable working across the institutional boundaries that have traditionally separated these systems. It will require government, industry and regional authorities to think more carefully about sequencing and dependencies and to recognise that infrastructure only works when its component parts arrive together.
Electrification will undoubtedly change the vehicles we use, but the more significant transformation may be in the infrastructure system that has to sit behind them. If we get that planning right, we can make transport investment more deliverable, more resilient and better aligned with the wider development of our regions. If we continue to plan transport and energy independently, we risk discovering too late that the infrastructure required to power the transport system has not been planned alongside the transport system itself.
The opportunity is to get ahead of that problem rather than react to it. The transport industry, energy sector, developers, government and UK plc all have a role in doing so, and the sooner we start treating transport and energy as parts of the same infrastructure system, the better equipped we will be to deliver the transport networks and economic growth our regions will need in the years ahead.
Tim Bellamy is Assistant Director – Transport at Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority
Tim originally published this article on LinkedIn on 22nd September 2026
Feature Image: Author Sourced