Here's a sneak preview of my next Bulletin's Blog. Feel free to jump aboard with your observations!
You may have seen some of the spectacle that surrounded the Olympic Games in Beijing recently. How, many people are wondering, are we going to top that? Not just in terms of sporting achievement, but in terms of showbiz and sheer logistical triumph.
Well, part of the answer was glimpsed in the closing ceremony. London had an eight minute slot to sell its vision of 2012. The result was people standing in a bus stop queue holding umbrellas waiting for a red double decker.
Forget top movie director Zhang Yimou's jaw dropping Tower of Remembrance. Clearly the true icon for London and Great Britain will be a bus. Maybe more than one - you know how it is, you can wait four years for a national icon and then three arrive all at once.
Note it wasn't a Bendy Bus - Boris Johnson's affable flag waving and comedy salute as he entered the stadium masks a steely hatred of the Bendy bus. Nor was it the Routemaster so beloved by Boris, truly an icon of London since the 50s.
If you're interested, I'm pretty sure it was an Alexander Dennis Enviro 400, but a tad modified. You don't tend to see the No 44 open up to reveal David Beckham, an X Factor winner and a Led Zeppelin guitarist on the top deck every day. It might explain London's increasing number of bus users if you did!
Can you imagine another major world capital using its big moment in the spotlight to show a bus? I'll bet the Australians had a snigger. Though as their sports minister promised to dress up in red, white and blue if we beat them in the medals tally, I think the last laugh is with us.
Seriously though, as Beijing highlighted; there are serious challenges facing our passenger transport infrastructure and some huge logistics exercises to undergo if London is to achieve anything like the success of China.
The major contracts for 2012 are already in place - but there will undoubtedly be some huge commercial opportunities for logistics suppliers. Politicians may be claiming we'll be able to host the next Olympics for 3 bob but it looks to me like there's a lot of money to play for.
As ever your Institute will be there to help you network, to offer impartial advice to Government and contractors; and to aid professionals facing the Olympics hurdles ahead.
Though as for the boating events, speaking as someone who's lived in Weymouth and holidayed there earlier this month, the town's road system will need ripping up and starting again. Otherwise the Olympic flame may run out of gas waiting at those notorious lights between The Esplanade and the A353.
It's a good job many of the country's leading transport planners are members of CILT. Without the work of these professionals the Free Tibet protestors may not have managed it, but Dorset's A roads may finally extinguish the Olympic torch!
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