Finding purpose at the intersection of tech and transport

Transport for New South Wales was first established in 2011, and since then, the culture of putting customers and communities at the center of everything, and partnering with operational agencies, private operators, and industry to deliver passenger focus services and projects, has been a constant. As a leading advocate, chief innovation and technology officer Kurt Brissett is in charge of the technology and innovation team, and effectively responsible to deliver services for people and goods — whether on roads, trains, busses, ferries, metro, light rail, vehicles on demand, and even walking and cycling — for a population of about 8.5 million.

“We also deliver on the largest investment that New South Wales has made in transport infrastructure in history through our project delivery partners and industry experts,” he says. “My team and I have a vision to optimize the use of all types of technology to offer the best transport experience for our customers, communities, the transport system, and, of course, our workforce, and we ultimately want to use technology to create the safest, fastest, easiest, most reliable and most cost effective transport system in Australia.”

The success of that vision, carried throughout its nearly 30,000 employees, depends on a consistent effort to be laser-focused on applying the best of emerging tech and talent. “We don’t just operate transportation services; we deliver large-scale projects and for that, not only do we need technology roles and more developers, we require more testers and product managers,” says Brissett. “There’s also a raft of other roles that lend themselves to other skills, such as project managers, business analysts, change managers, and cyber security experts. And of course, we have a whole range of frontline staff roles across our various modes.”

AI is developing into an integral addition to the government agency as well, currently poised to transform the employee and customer experience. “We approach AI in a strategic way, and there’ll probably be two main methods of AI we’ll look at,” he says. “The first is in the adoption and embedment of AI tools for our staff to aid in workforce productivity, and the second is through AI solution development, where we want a bit more of a tailored response and product that’s needed to be designed in a way to solve a specific opportunity or problem.”

These AI solutions will be necessary to streamline business processes, better manage assets, and operate more efficiently. But also there’s the opportunity to personalize the digital customer experience. “I’m excited by the direction that AI is heading,” he says. “And we’re already seeing this nexus beginning to form between robotics AI and improved digital connectivity. We’re also seeing the proliferation of connected autonomous vehicles in other jurisdictions. All of this is transforming the way people will move in the future.”

O’Sullivan and Brissett also discussed his passion for creating careers in technology for veterans, expediting the consumer experience, and scouting talent to help narrow the skills gap. Watch the full video below for more insights.

On innovation: Our contactless payment system, Opal, is something that’s been incredibly successful and was the result of listening to our customers. Over four and a half billion trips have been processed by our Opal ticketing system since 2012 but we recognize our customers wanted more choice and convenience around how they access and pay for their travel. So we set about designing and implementing a way for people to use their credit, debit, or link device to tap on and off the network and receive the same open fares, discounts, and benefits, so customers no longer had to queue at ticketing machines or at a retailer, or get a preloaded Opal card. They could simply use their phone or watch and pay as they traveled. It’s been a revelation, and has completely transformed the way our customers use public transport, with 60% of all adult trips now being taken using contactless payments.

And there’s Apple Express, a product enhancement we launched last year, which automatically recognizes when an Apple or Samsung device is in proximity to our Opal readers, and the smart device is automatically woken up and authenticated, allowing customers to seamlessly tap it to open a gate at a train station, or to a bus, ferry, light rail or metro service. With the high adoption of digital wallet usage among our customers, we recognized there was friction associated with the time it was taking to tap these devices. This was also resulting in customer queuing frustration and having an impact on the on-time running of some of our transport services. So to address this pain point, we worked with our ticketing vendor and Apple to roll out this new feature, and it’s been incredibly well received. Now, thanks to the technology, we can even allow our passengers to still use their phone to tap on our readers when their battery has run flat, as these devices still carry some latent charge. It’s a fantastic value add.

On AI as a solution: Asset AI is an incredibly innovative, homegrown product that essentially maintains our roads. Filling in potholes is a constant struggle for New South Wales transport. It’s a never-ending job that can invariably present safety risks to our drivers, and is increasingly costly to state and local governments since the longer assets aren’t maintained, the more expensive the remediation becomes. To address this, we work in partnership with our safety colleagues and local councils to design and deliver our Asset AI platform that uses sensors and camera technology installed on board rubbish trucks to detect potholes and cracks in roads, allowing councils and operators to swiftly respond and undertake proactive maintenance. It’s been an incredible success, and now we’re looking at how we can use the same technology to also sell for a range other transport related use cases. While we may have designed a particular solution to solve one particular problem, the technology has often been leveraged to solve other adjacent use cases, amplifying the benefits associated with the initial technology investment.

On effective collaboration: There’s a real success story of the value you can derive from investing in, supporting, and ultimately trusting your people. We’re fortunate to have an amazing team that’s passionate about technology and delivers amazing outcomes for our passengers. Transport Connect is a platform that was designed and delivered by the technology and innovation team to provide our customers with a multi modal account-based digital experience. We adopted an iterative test and learn approach where we progressively built the platform and front-end digital experience, and we did this by identifying specific passenger use cases and services we knew we wanted to deliver to provide a more intuitive and consistent digital customer experience. Some of the various transport services now accessible via this platform include access to our on demand shuttle services, digital self-service that registers and uses a passenger’s contactless payments, and free commute car parking for those who use public transport via our park and ride product. It’s really demonstrated that with a small cross functional development team, you can be very innovative and rapidly launch trials among small groups of customers to validate certain hypotheses you might have, and ultimately refine the product proposition so it becomes more scalable.

On driving engagement: One thing I’ve been really big on is recruitment based on character. Within technology and innovation, we’re increasingly hiring grads and junior developers based on attributes such as their ability to learn, be creative, and challenge the status quo. And we assess their ability to work as part of a team and their skills, knowledge, and attributes that demonstrate they’re capable and willing to grow, develop, and, in time, take on more responsibility. For example, we put out candidates applying to be testers through an extensive hands-on selection process, which is invariably team based, in order to test the applicant’s suitability in a challenging, uncertain scenario-based activity. In doing this, we’ve managed to recruit some absolute top-end talent and create some really cohesive and close-knit teams that are engaged, passionate about what they do, and have bought into our values at Transport. So if you create such a team, and if you have a strong brand your people can get behind, then that invariably translates into a great customer experience and high customer satisfaction.

On a commitment to veterans: This is something I’m really passionate about. I began my career in the Army in 1999 and undertook my tertiary studies and officer training at the Australian Defence Force Academy before being assigned to the Royal Australian signals Corps, which is the technology arm of the Australian Defence Force. So for 15 years, I worked across both conventional and special forces, and served on seven overseas operational deployments. I was privileged during that time to lead in some volatile and complex environments. The adversity meant that not only did the teams need to bond and rely on one another, but that I needed to grow up quickly as a young officer and refine my approach to leading teams. But when I left the military, I experienced first-hand the challenges of transitioning into civilian employment. It took me a good nine months to land my first job after applying for over 200. Finally, someone looked beyond my military service and gave me a chance, and for that, I’m forever grateful.

Since then, I’ve had some amazing mentors who’ve been gracious in offering their time to provide career coaching. So at Transport, we’ve established our veterans employee network, of which I’m the co-chair. Our group is dedicated to empowering veterans by providing meaningful employment opportunities. We try to bridge the gap between military service and the civilian workforce by fostering an inclusive community where veteran skills, leadership and dedication are recognized and valued. So through personalized support, professional development, and partnering, we’re creating pathways for veterans to thrive in their post service lives, contributing their unique strengths to Transport and society at large.