Getting transport projects ready for day 1 and beyond with data analytics and advanced technologies

Across Australia over the next few years, several large-scale, high-profile, high-risk public transport projects will ‘go live’. These projects involve huge investments of resources – of time, money, human capital, political will and reputation. Getting them right is in everyone’s interest. In our latest article, as part of the ‘Getting transport projects purpose ready’ series, we look at how data analytics and advanced technologies, used in the right way, can help set projects up for success from day one.

Our focus is on customer experience. New data sets, technology and analytical techniques are allowing governments and businesses to reimagine how they deliver services to customers. This increased focus on data-driven customer-centricity has already enabled better experiences for many, but there is still potential to achieve much more. 

We look at the opportunity to:

Better understand customers.

• How changing metrics from an operational focus, such as ‘on-time running’ to a more customer-centric metric, such as ‘lost customer minutes’, can help shift mindsets and better align data collection and analysis, KPIs and strategy. 

• How moving from ‘push’ systems based on pre-set needs and information to fully dynamic systems can deliver real-time personalised information to customers. They can also help operators use ‘behavioural nudges’ to manage the network more smoothly. For example, incentivising customers to change their intended travel time when needed. 

Encourage customers to ‘barter’ with their data and embrace uncertainty.

• Customers will need to share their data to access better services and experiences – but this requires a strong foundation of trust that their data will be appropriately managed, with the right technology and systems in place for governance, privacy, cybersecurity and data sharing. Customers will also need to perceive the value and benefit that sharing their data will deliver them, or they will not engage, and push-based personalisation will be as good as it gets. 

• For customers to get the information they need within an actionable timeframe, real-time information needs to be supplemented with predictive information. But, even with the most powerful machine learning techniques, there will still be some uncertainty in the data. This needs to be communicated to customers so that they can embrace the uncertainty to allow confidence and trust to grow.

Use digital twins to ‘test’ solutions in a safe environment.

• A digital twin is a virtual representation of the real world. It pulls an enormous amount of information together to enable users to understand the history and current state of the network and to explore the ‘what if’ questions that will shape the network’s future. The range of digital twin technologies and systems now extends beyond assets and networks to include customers and workforces – this brings significant additional advantages.  

Use data analytics for operational readiness 

• An operational readiness project for a new piece of major transport infrastructure is extremely complex, and the data flow is enormous. An analytical platform is needed to consume this data and make sense of all the aspects, interplays and derived dependencies – such as network interactions and intersections, customer flows, timetabling, pressure points and disruption. What’s needed is to use data in a way that is more sophisticated, broader and more detailed than before. By understanding the impact of any new infrastructure in the context of the overall network and interaction with different modes and other infrastructure assets, we can better understand the effect on the customer experience.