The Department for Transport published a transport resilience strategy on Monday that makes 22 commitments to strengthen the UK transport system over the next 5 to 10 years.
The minister responsible for transport resilience told the House that the strategy has been placed in the libraries of both Houses and was developed with stakeholders from across government and the transport system.
Among the commitments are a new training initiative, the Transport Resilience Academy, and a sector-wide transport resilience network. The minister said these would help government, local partners and other sectors share evidence and best practice and address common risks together.
The strategy has three aims: to assess transport resilience on an ongoing basis so improvements can be targeted, to enable the whole system, including transport users, to act, and to strengthen government resilience capabilities.
Those aims apply to transport the three primary objectives of the UK Government Resilience Action Plan, which the minister said was published in July 2025 and sets the government’s approach to resilience in what it calls an increasingly volatile and uncertain world.
The strategy document says government will work with industry and local partners to understand risks, reduce vulnerabilities and improve preparedness for disruption across the transport system.
It commits to a tailored resilience training package for transport operators and local partners, delivered alongside the sector-wide network to support collaboration and shared learning.
It also sets out practical measures in four areas: risk assessment, horizon scanning, exercising and local collaboration.
The minister said the threats facing transport are becoming more complex and unpredictable, and that its interconnectedness means disruption in one place can quickly have consequences elsewhere.
Recent events, the minister said, show resilience cannot be treated as an ‘optional extra’, but as something vital to the operations of businesses and transport operators.
The strategy gives transport users a role as well as operators. The minister said that while automation and digital technology will continue to be embraced, transport remains a "people-dependent system".
Ensuring users are prepared and have the right information, the minister said, can reduce the likelihood of disruption and lessen its impact when it happens.
The department has set resilience policy before. A transport resilience review was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Transport in response to the extreme weather of winter 2013 and 2014.
That review, presented to Parliament in July 2014, was an independent study of how all modes of transport coped with extreme weather. Its chapters covered the strategic road network, local roads, railways, and ports and airports.
Its panel carried out nine visits to transport infrastructure and gathered evidence from mid-March to mid-July 2014.
The 2026 strategy has a wider remit. It applies to the transport system as a whole and to a broader range of threats and hazards, rather than weather alone.
The minister said no single organisation can deliver resilience alone, describing it as a whole-government, whole-sector and whole-society endeavour. The strategy’s stated purpose is to protect the connections on which people and businesses depend and to "ultimately improve the everyday experience of those who use our networks".