With the UK braced for an infrastructure revolution, flagship projects with lofty price tags will no doubt continue to grab the headlines. But Engineering Integration engineering director Julian Mason believes that much cheaper very light rail (VLR) systems could unlock a complete intermodal transport system across the country. "If you think of a transport system as a tree; people walking to the station are the leaves on the tree that feed on to the twigs, which are the VLR systems," Mason explains. "They in turn feed on to the heavy rail, which is the branches, which feed into the trunk that is the overall intermodal hub. "At the moment, there is a disconnect between the leaves and the branches and that is why you get a lot of cars driving to stations," he adds.
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