The Department for Transport (DfT) has published a national Transport Resilience Strategy, setting out the Government's approach over the next five to 10 years.

The document explains how Government will work with industry and local partners to 'understand risks, reduce vulnerabilities and improve preparedness for disruption'.

Among the risks highlighted in the document are ageing road infrastructure and resulting increasing maintenance, power outages affecting transport operations, disruption to supply chains and failure or hacking of interconnected digital and roadside technology.

It also spotlights the challenge of more frequent or severe extreme weather events. The strategy states: 'In England alone, 37% of railways and 38% of roads are in areas currently assessed as at risk from one or more sources of flooding. This is expected to rise to 54% and 46% respectively based on climate change projections by the middle of this century.'

Keir Mather, transport minister with responsibility for resilience, said: 'The threats and hazards facing our transport system are becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable. Its interconnectedness means that disruption in one place can quickly have consequences elsewhere, affirming the importance of building resilience within the system overall.

'Whilst we will continue to embrace automation and advances in digital technology to improve safety and effectiveness, transport remains a people-dependent system. Therefore, it is vital that people within the transport system are equipped with the knowledge, capabilities, and tools necessary to keep transport moving.

'By ensuring that everyone knows their role and how it impacts the continuing resilience of the transport system, and by ensuring that transport users are prepared and armed with the right information, we can reduce the likelihood of disruption and lessen its impact when it occurs.'

In Annex B, the document lists a series of commitments that the Government has made to support each of its three core resilience objectives.

Among the actions to be taken, the DfT said it will:

Objective 1: Continuously assess how resilient the UK transport sector is, to target interventions and resources effectively

  • improve and standardise risk assessment by promoting best practice, tools, and the creation and standardisation of inter-modal transport industry risk registers
  • improve scrutiny of risks by establishing an expert transport resilience red teaming panel.
  • manage cross-sector interdependencies by providing guidance on upstream risks and aligning transport and energy resilience planning.
  • strengthen preparedness by delivering a co-ordinated, multi-year exercise programme and encouraging wider partner participation.

Objective 2: Enable the whole of the transport system, including transport users, to take action to increase resilience

  • improve sector preparedness by enhancing assurance and expanding business guidance 
  • strengthen Critical National Infrastructure resilience by improving CNI mapping and formalising engagement with operators.
  • improve mutual aid and local co-ordination by convening operators, regulators and responders to mobilise assets during disruption.
  • raise professional resilience skills by promoting National Occupational Standards and launching a Transport Resilience Academy pilot

Objective 3: Strengthen government's transport resilience capabilities

  • embed Lead Government Department responsibilities by ensuring accountable leaders and their responsible teams understand and can fulfil their roles in mitigating and managing civil contingency risks to transport.
  • improve strategic decision‑making by publishing an Appraisal, Modelling and Evaluation Strategy and formally embedding resilience in arm's‑length bodies through governance, guidance, and assurance arrangements.

Part of the UK Roads Leadership Group, the Board for Adaptation, Biodiversity and Climate Resilience backed the strategy.

John Lamb, chair of the Board, said: 'This is an important strategy, and DfT deserves real credit for it. The Resilience team engaged widely across the sector and with the devolved administrations, and it shows. For the first time, transport resilience has a clear direction across the whole of the UK, and local highway authorities are recognised as the infrastructure owners and Category 1 responders they are. The strategy sets the floor. The sector will, and must, build on it, and the work now is getting the sector ready.

'It builds on important work across the whole of UKRLG and its Boards: the evidence of the 2021 Lessons report and our 2025 retrospective, regional workshops with more than 200 highway directors across all four nations, and our Suspension of Business As Usual guidance, which gives authorities pre-agreed triggers and defensible decisions for extreme events.

'Local roads are the lifelines that emergency services, care workers, schools and supply chains depend on when severe weather strikes. With one of the strongest El Niño events on record forecast this winter, that work can't wait. I'd invite senior leaders in local highways across the UK to engage with it now.'