ABSTRACT
Problem centred models provide a particularly important aspect of any explanation of the increase in political salience of the transport issue in the Major era. The vehicle emissions example is particularly instructive in illustrating the cyclical nature of the impact of problems which rely on high levels of public emotion. Central government supported a series of technical solutions to transport problems which militated against widespread policy change involving lifestyle. The strategies of actors, the conceptualisation of transport as a policy problem and developments in the external environment can destabilise the status quo. Policy networks provide a particularly useful metaphor by which groups in the transport area can be classified as insiders or outsiders. Actors can be characterised in terms of their relationship to a policy making core, which helps to account for the different tactics which they use. The impact of the activity of the anti-roads groups on the coherence of the core, pro-roads, policy community was also limited.
