29 minute read
Respected leaders | panel discussion
Respected leaders
L–R: Sir Rod Eddington AO, Mark Birrell, Ailie MacAdam and Michael Brennan
Key points
• Long-term thinking in infrastructure is needed despite a difficult political environment. • A pipeline of evidence-based projects is critical to the long-term planning of infrastructure. • It’s important to get the balance of risk allocation right.
Panellists:
► Michael Brennan, Chair, Productivity Commission ► The Hon Mark Birrell, Patron, Infrastructure
Partnerships Australia; and Independent
Director and Chairman, PostSuper ► Ailie MacAdam, Senior Vice President,
Bechtel Corporation; and Acting President,
Bechtel Infrastructure
Moderator:
► Sir Rod Eddington AO, Chairman,
Infrastructure Partnerships Australia Sir Rod Eddington AO (RE): Michael, perhaps we might start with you. Long-term reform and longer-term thinking are two crucial issues at the moment, and they are things that the Productivity Commission – not only under you, but also under Peter Harris and Gary Banks – has championed for a long time.
Are we losing our appetite for long-term reform? If we are, what are some things we could focus on now to kickstart our desire to see long-term reform come back onto the global, national and state agenda?
Michael Brennan (MBr): I’m not sure that there is any innate loss of appetite or zeal for long-term reform. I think there is a lot in what Tim Pallas says in that we had a very full and coherent agenda around economic reform in the 1980s and
Sir Rod Eddington AO
1990s across a broad range of policy levers and sectors. To some extent, that has run its course, and there has been an effort to identify what the next wave of reform is. That’s where the work of the Productivity Commission came in through the ‘Shifting the Dial’ report.
The report was an attempt to try and ascertain and identify what a modern-day reform agenda looks like. Some of it looks a lot like the past, but some of it is reaching into new areas like health, education and infrastructure.
Some of the process is about furnishing government with long-term ideas – setting the beacon out there on the horizon. It isn’t necessarily about us berating politicians for their lack of reform appetite, because they have a lot to deal with in the short term. But it is incumbent on us as policymakers and policy advisers to get out there and argue the case in public.
Currently, there is a long-term reform agenda there. I’m optimistic about it, but I think we need to manage the dual role of long-term advocacy with the public and provide government with short-term actionable items that can build towards that.
RE: In that regard, business has some obligations in encouraging the process, not only in supporting the work you do, but also in encouraging politicians to take a longerterm view.
MBr: I agree, and it’s about taking a broad view rather than a narrow one.
RE: Ailie, you sit at both ends of this as a Senior Vice President at Bechtel. You sit here in Australia, dealing with the day-to-day reality of delivering big projects balanced against your other role as President of Bechtel Infrastructure.
You are involved in looking at what’s happening globally around the long-term thinking; the project pipelines. How do you marry the short term – the tyranny of the urgent, such as ensuring that you have enough skilled tradespeople – against keeping a 15-year view of the pipeline?
Ailie MacAdam (AM): We rely on visibility of the pipeline, which is fundamentally important to decisions on where we’re going to invest. As a global company, we make decisions on which region we’re going to invest in and where we’re going to place our best talent, and that is driven by visibility of pipeline
and how robust we think their pipeline is, and the historical track record of governments around the world.
We ask questions like, ‘Do they deliver what they say they’re going to deliver as far as procurement time lines are concerned?’ That’s really important, because when you’ve got that foundation, you can invest in positioning your talent around the world, in training, and in forging strategic partnerships with the supply chain. And depending on the different challenges and capacity issues in various regions, you can think about innovating around different procurement models.
Here in Australia, across New South Wales and Victoria, we talk about the capacity challenges. Both Dominic Perrottet and Tim Pallas have talked about encouraging the tier-twos and tier-threes to be more involved in the supply chain.
My take is that there is a different model where we can unleash the innovation that is present in the tier-twos and tierthrees, which is stifled by current procurement models. It’s the tier-twos and -threes that need to be bold enough to say that, and come up with real ideas to unleash this innovation. At the end of the day, they’re the ones with feet on the ground.
RE: Ailie, you have a global perspective. Putting Australia to one side, what country or regions do you think get this closest to right?
AM: If I’m frank with you, infrastructure around the world is challenging. It’s challenging in North America, it’s challenging in the United Kingdom, it’s challenging in the Asia Pacific, and it’s challenging here in Australia.
In infrastructure, we’ve slipped into a procurement model and risk allocation that just doesn’t work – it’s just not sustainable, and different parts of the world are in different parts of the cycle.
Here in Australia, we are seeing businesses really struggle, and some are going out of business. This happened in the United Kingdom a couple of years ago. We’re starting to see the supply chain not bidding, but customers are still needing to build the infrastructure – so we need to be thinking about different approaches.
Here in Australia, we’re slightly behind coming to the reality, but we’re talking about it. For example, we have the New South Wales Government’s ‘Ten Point Commitment to the Construction Sector’, but this is yet to flow through to procurement. North America is even further behind Australia in coming to the realisation that things have to be different. That’s infrastructure.
Compare the infrastructure market with our oil and gas, and mining and metals markets. It forces you to stand back and think. What’s different about the delivery for those privatesector customers compared to public-sector customers in New South Wales and Victoria, and federally?
If we talk to international oil or mining and metals companies, they make their business cases with a solid understanding of their baseline really early on, when they’re only two per cent complete in some cases.
This means early on that they’ve made investment decisions, they understand the scope, have a really detailed cost estimate, and understand the program, the risks and their execution strategy. This provides them with a baseline they make decisions on, and it gives them certainty of delivery from start to end.
This kind of robust baseline is rare to see in the infrastructure market, which places cost and schedule challenges on projects historically.
We need to change this thinking in the infrastructure market. We need to be looking at how to add value right at the beginning, and be really outcome-focused in terms of what we need to deliver and how are we going to deliver it.
We’ve had the opportunity to do this on Western Sydney Airport (WSA) – it’s fantastic. With WSA, we were brought on as a Delivery Partner early in the program. This has meant that we were able to establish a baseline early on that the customer can use to inform investment decisions. This helps to manage outcomes and expectations, and puts them in control right from the beginning.
Michael Brennan
RE: Mark, you’ve probably seen this journey more closely than any other as Minister for Major Projects during the reformist government under Jeff Kennett. You have also brought your considerable intellect to the infrastructure table over a long period in many ways.
Given where we are, perhaps you can give us your insights into the current federal versus state debate – I know you’ve given it a lot of thought and have been an active participant in it. But there’s also never been a period in Australia’s history where the quantity of major infrastructure projects underway is as numerous as it is today. What do you make of the current state of play, whether it’s federal, state or the infrastructure pipeline and the delivery thereof?
Mark Birrell (MB): Context is important here. There has been considerable progress on the federal–state infrastructure dialogue, but this is all now happening in a social media storm, which is harsh in terms of governments canvassing ideas about next year or the year after, rather than today.
So, we need to ask how we can get great government action in an environment where Twitter rules, where short-term social commentary is so cynical and negative, and where the steps for taking action are more difficult.
I think if we’re looking at the root of the problem with public policy and the lack of bravery or activism, it’s because the perceived rewards for doing something long term are a lot lower than they should be.
When I was a Cabinet Minister in the Kennett Government, we went out with ideas that we knew were not immediately popular, and we were proven right on that!
But when you just got on with important projects or reforms, people said, ‘Oh, you know what you did back then? They’re good projects’. They forget the negative commentary at the time, but it’s a lot harder to do that now.
As an industry, we should get behind the thinking that says, ‘I am not going to live in the world of social media. I’m not going to just listen to the knockers or the interest groups that don’t represent long-term interests. I’m going to just try and get on with a whole range of issues that are important’.
This is of direct importance, because everyone here knows that infrastructure should always be planned for the long term – it has to be if it’s going to work. Before you start, the desired outcomes must be worked out well in advance, so the public gets what it wants out of the project.
Another point of context here is the political environment, and Canberra is now remarkably normal, calm and stable. We can be thankful for that, after the last 10 years and the massive changes in Prime Ministers. In Scott Morrison and
L–R: Sir Rod Eddington AO, and Mark Birrell
Ailie MacAdam
Josh Frydenberg, we’ve got people with the ability to get policy outcomes achieved. They get it. There’s a distinct opportunity now for a good dialogue, as they’re both keen for ideas and for a middle-ground approach to running government.
On that basis, I am optimistic about the future of infrastructure planning and delivery, particularly if we back in leaders who say, ‘I’ve got a long-term vision, let’s work to it’. People are actually hungry for that. It would lift them up. To do that, we also need the type of bipartisanship that we see between Tim Pallas and Dominic Perrottet.
RE: If you go back to a young Mark Birrell as a Minister in a successful reformist government – does the avalanche of social media commentary make it harder for a young Cabinet Minister today to focus on the long term? Are some people better at blocking that clutter out?
MB: Yeah. When I was a Minister, I used to get up in the morning and think, ‘What’s the idea we’re trying to put out? How can I get the media to cover it? How am I going to define myself by what we want to do?’ Today, a Minister wakes up and says, ‘How can I define myself by how I disagree with my opponent?’
And the media rewards it, because it’s got conflict and it is more dramatic. But we can replace that, there is an answer. Let us all – planners, architects, financiers, constructors, agencies – always try to inform the public about how infrastructure will improve their lives and their community. Make it clear that different projects will improve their quality of life and deliver just that!
And let us do what I see engineers doing all the time: explaining the purpose of each project and having a public discussion about a project over time. They talk about the difficulties and challenges of it, and the barriers they have to deal with. They often take people on a very purposeful journey of how hard it is to build this project. It’s inclusive – and it is the type of positive message often missing today.
RE: Ailie, you’ve touched on risk already, and how it gets allocated and who manages it. One of the challenges is determining who’s best able to manage risk and at what point risk gets transferred. It’s something that all of us in the sector think about a lot. As you look across a wide range of projects, what’s your take on that?
AM: In Bechtel’s operations, about 75 per cent of our work is as a contractor and 25 per cent is on the customer side. People often ask me in Australia, ‘Why aren’t you bidding on the contractor side?’ Given the risk allocation, I just won’t bid it.
It’s currently a race to the bottom, and contractors are taking on risk that they can’t manage. Now, I’ll take risk on when I know I can manage, and I’ll back my team to handle it. But when I’m asked to take on risk that I can’t manage due to unforeseen ground conditions, for example, I’ll price it in a way that means our bid will be uncompetitive. I won’t win it; therefore, I’m not going to bid it.
Until that changes, we won’t be in that market. That’s the same in North America, so where this is the case globally, we won’t bid it. This impacts competition in the market as there are other companies like mine.
I’m not saying there needs to be no risk; it just needs to be allocated correctly. Risk carries commercial impacts, health and safety impacts, cultural impacts, relationship impacts, trust impacts – to me, that’s fundamental risk allocation. Getting that right can reduce those impacts.
RE: Mark, you’ve been involved with a lot of projects. Some projects run more smoothly than others. What’s your sense on this risk piece?
MB: If you get advice from a respected participant like Ailie that it’s difficult, then you’ve got to have a dialogue. I hope there are government procurement agencies and treasuries who are saying, ‘Let’s work through exactly what Bechtel is telling us!’ When you’re procuring projects, you always want active bids from people who’ve done the type of work before, who can tell you about the risk. These are the people who can tell you if you’ve identified the risk incorrectly or not at all – this allows you to get quality assurance and price competitiveness, too.
Part of that debate in the past was about whether we allowed other entrants into the market. I think Australia’s been good at allowing in other entrants.
But I sometimes think that we procure projects with a schedule or scale that means people won’t bid for them. For instance, there’s a huge opportunity for us to tender $50 million or $100 million maintenance projects – smaller ones. This will help builders who are not getting the type of work they expect, who are not seeing the pipeline in the future. Ultimately, the way you tender affects risk tremendously. This varies between states – Victoria is doing it well now, and South Australia is punching above its weight. This is the type of discussion you need to have, otherwise we’re going to be disappointed when we open the proverbial tender box.
RE: Michael, we spend quite a bit of time thinking about infrastructure in the context of what I would call hard infrastructure – roads, rail, ports, airports and the like. But the Productivity Commission thinks about infrastructure in its broadest sense, including social infrastructure. Can you please share your thoughts on what initiatives you’re looking at in the social infrastructure space?
MBr: Sure – we cover all of infrastructure, as you know. It’s topical right now because we’ve handed our final report to the government on airports. So, we still look at hard infrastructure, but there is a very important agenda around newly emerging infrastructure in a digital world.
The creation of databases and investment in intangibles – which is a growing share of overall investment and a growing share of overall capital stock – over time is going to be a significant driver of productivity.
When we’ve seen disappointing physical infrastructure or physical investment figures, part of it is due to the rise of services in the Australian economy. These are inherently less capital-intensive sectors, and they’re investing in different ways. Some different issues emerge on the back of this. It is still very important to ensure that we have the right incentives for business to invest and to innovate, but it’s a very different form of capital asset.
The other thing that we’re very interested in, sitting alongside the creation of the physical infrastructure, is usage. Now, Australia has well-developed infrastructure markets in areas like telecommunications, non-urban water (to an extent), and even urban water. The latter may not be markets, but pricing does a good job of guiding investment decisions in those sectors.
There are other sectors, such as road and rail, where decisions are taken in the complete absence of markets and pricing. Full-blown markets in these sectors may be a bit of a pipedream, but you can certainly get more market-like disciplines in those areas. For example, this is why I’ve been a long-term advocate of road-user charging. It would inject greater discipline around the benefits of potential competing infrastructure investments.
Infrastructure usage is also quite interesting in terms of roads and public transport. When you step right back, there’s an oddity at the moment around the way we use our road infrastructure – we have digital-era ride-sharing services available via an app, and industrial-era bus services with centrally planned timetables and contracts that involve driving the bus on a fixed route. So, I think infrastructure usage is going to be increasingly important alongside the augmentation of capital stock.
RE: And often the best economic benefits come from better use of existing infrastructure as opposed to building new stock.
If you were able to give the Prime Minister one piece of advice in infrastructure, what you would want him to focus on in the next two or three years?
MB: Everyone benefits from having an identifiable national priority list of desirable projects. The work done by Infrastructure Australia has given a real base for it. So, focus on a well-discussed list and support those who have welldeveloped ideas. Let’s encourage a process where you do a feasibility study, do a business case, publish it, and it goes on a list. The likelihood is that at elections, politicians will choose from that list. We’re all better off with it. It’s not rocket science,
but it’s still hard to do. We’ve got to encourage those who do the work that gives a real sense of the costings and the deliverability of projects.
RE: Ailie?
AM: I come back to risk allocation. I think risk allocation is the key that drives so much of the culture of the infrastructure sector. When you compare it to other sectors, it’s quite harsh and not as inclusive, diverse, or safe as it could be.
When you compare health and safety stats in infrastructure to other sectors, it’s not as innovative. We don’t think about big data the same way, and we don’t necessarily develop our leaders. I think if we waved the magic wand and got that risk allocation right, we could have better alignment from the customer all the way through the supply chain.
MBr: This goes to soft infrastructure. The workings of the Federation are fundamental – I’m a big believer in the Federation. There are lessons to be learnt at the state level. One of the things that we don’t do well is having a useful clearing house of lessons learnt – the successes and failures at the state level. This is where we can share knowledge.
Our Federation is much more robust than people give it credit for. It isn’t necessarily the source of inefficiency that people claim it is.
We need to use the Federation as a laboratory for experimentation. The best way to do that is to ensure that we’ve all got a thorough appreciation of what’s working well. For instance, there are very interesting things going on in New South Wales with on-demand bus services, and commercial zoning in Victoria. These are some good experiments that could be shared, and it would pay quite a big dividend across the country.
RE: And it’d be good if we published more of that best practice. That’s a great place to finish.
Michael Brennan – Chair, Productivity Commission
Prior to his role at the Productivity Commission, Michael Brennan was Deputy Secretary, Fiscal Group, in the Federal Treasury, with responsibility for budget policy, retirement incomes, Commonwealth–state relations, social policy and infrastructure financing. Before that, he was Deputy Secretary, Economic, at the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance. Mr Brennan has worked as an Associate Director in the economics and policy practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and as a Senior Adviser to Treasurers and Ministers for Finance at the state and federal level.
Mr Brennan holds a Bachelor of Economics (Hons) from the Australian National University.
The Hon Mark Birrell – Patron, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia; and Independent Director and Chairman, PostSuper
Mark Birrell was the founding Chair of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, and is a full-time, Non-Executive Director. With an extensive background on public and private boards, he is currently Chairman of PostSuper, and an Independent Non-Executive Director of Transurban. He is the immediate past President of the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Mr Birrell has served in leadership roles across the transport and logistics sectors, including as Chairman of the Port of Melbourne Corporation and of Infrastructure Australia, Deputy Chairman of Australia Post, and Leader of the Infrastructure Group at MinterEllison Lawyers. Mr Birrell has a strong public policy background through his earlier service as a Victorian Cabinet Minister. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Companion of Engineers Australia.
Sir Rod Eddington AO – Chairman, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia
Rod Eddington is Chairman of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, Chairman of J.P. Morgan’s Asia Pacific Advisory Council, and Non-Executive Chairman of Lion. Sir Rod previously served as the inaugural Chair of Infrastructure Australia from 2008–2014. Educated as an engineer at the University of Western Australia and then Oxford University as Western Australia’s 1974 Rhodes Scholar, Sir Rod’s career began in transport and aviation, and he went on to become CEO of Cathay Pacific, Ansett Airlines and British Airways, before retiring in late 2005 and returning to Australia.
In 2005, Sir Rod was awarded a Knighthood by the British Government for service to civil aviation; in 2012, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for service to business and commerce; and in 2015, he was honoured by the Japanese Government with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun for his contribution to strengthening the economic relations between Australia and Japan. Sir Rod serves as a member of the APEC Business Advisory Council and is President of the Australia Japan Business Cooperation Committee. He also sits as a Non-Executive Director on the Board of China Light and Power Holdings and John Swire and Sons Pty Ltd (Australia).
Ailie MacAdam – Senior Vice President, Bechtel Corporation; and Acting President, Bechtel Infrastructure
Ailie MacAdam is a Senior Vice President of Bechtel Corporation and General Manager of Bechtel Infrastructure Asia Pacific, based in Sydney. Being responsible for profit and loss, Ms MacAdam leads the the Asia-Pacific business with deployed leadership in various Asia-Pacific markets, and is committed to the growth of Bechtel’s Australian business development and project delivery in the transport infrastructure market. She is strategically focused on the rail, aviation, power, roads and tunnelling sectors.
During the 30 years she has worked for Bechtel, Ms MacAdam has led major UK, US and Australian infrastructure projects, in addition to oil, gas and chemicals projects in Europe and Africa. She brings an extensive background in rail mega-project delivery, having been previously assigned as Bechtel’s Global Rail Sector Lead.
Ms MacAdam is Bechtel’s client relationship manager and the executive sponsor for Bechtel’s Delivery Partner role on the Sydney Metro City, and Southwest and Western Sydney Airport projects – both being infrastructure projects of global scale.
Prior to her current appointment, Ms MacAdam served in various leadership roles. Aside from previously being Bechtel’s Global Rail Sector Lead, Ms MacAdam has been Managing Director for Australia, and Managing Director for Europe and Africa, with profit and loss accountability for rail, airport and heavy civil projects, including London City and Gatwick airports. Previous project roles have included Project Director for Crossrail – the largest civil infrastructure project in Europe – and Project Director for High Speed 1 (HS1, originally the Channel Tunnel Rail Link), the United Kingdom’s first high-speed rail line. Ms MacAdam also held key leadership roles on the Boston Central Artery/Tunnel project – the most complex urban transportation project in US history.
Ms MacAdam holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering and is a Fellow of the Institute of Civil Engineers.
RPS at the forefront of infrastructure advice
New advisory practice harnesses company’s vast expertise to help clients and communities.
As Australian infrastructure projects become more complex, the need for independent, integrated advice across a project’s life cycle has never been greater.
That is the view of Ross Thompson, CEO – Australia Asia Pacific, RPS, a leading global professional services firm and an in-demand adviser to infrastructure proponents and developers all over the country.
It is also the thinking behind RPS’ launch, in August 2019, of a uniquely infrastructure-focused Australian advisory practice that combines the firm’s local and global expertise in major project definition, design and management – and takes its infrastructure work to a new level.
‘Our advisory practice is made up of consultants who have experience in delivering and operating projects of all types and scales,’ says Thompson.
‘Infrastructure is not a theoretical discussion for us. We offer independent advice that incorporates lessons learnt from Australia’s most successful initiatives, and helps clients to deliver projects that generate real value for the community, economy and environment.
‘Our new advisory practice brings people with complementary skills and experience together around a common goal – to enhance the value of Australia’s investment in infrastructure.’
RPS’ advisory practice has three core services. In Strategy and Investment, RPS experts define strategy, lead and develop projects, and model outcomes; in Insights, Communications and Creative, RPS engages with stakeholders and communicates change using data, engagement and research; and in Commercial and Delivery, RPS provides
Sydney Metro
technical, commercial and transaction advice to maximise project value.
‘We help clients listen to the community’s views on infrastructure, respond to them through planning, and make sure the commitments made to end users are embedded into approval conditions and delivery contracts,’ says Thompson. ‘When you understand key issues up-front and integrate them into strategy, you minimise project risk and maximise value.’
Thompson believes that too many infrastructure projects suffer from poor integration of advice. ‘Various parts are subcontracted to different firms at
different stages, risking the consistency and quality of advice over multi-year projects. We work with clients from start to finish across a range of areas, meaning we deeply understand projects and can help clients respond quickly and effectively to challenges as they progress through the project life cycle.’
Strong foundations for growth
A series of acquisitions in Australia has given RPS the scale to assemble a market-leading team of integrated infrastructure planning and delivery advisers. In February 2019, RPS announced the $32-million acquisition of Corview, a 45-strong team of strategic, commercial advisory and management consulting specialists that has since been integrated into the new practice.
That followed the acquisition of community engagement adviser Straight Talk in 2018, and niche consultancies Everything Infrastructure Group (2015) and Manidis Roberts (2012). The acquisitions are part of RPS’ $95-million investment in infrastructure advisory in the Asia Pacific.
Thompson says the acquisitions have expanded RPS’ local capability at a critical time for the infrastructure sector. ‘Australia’s population growth is putting pressure on existing infrastructure, and increasing demand for new assets and optimisation initiatives. The volume and scale of investment is making projects evermore complex to plan, fund and deliver efficiently. Our new advisory practice is a response to that challenge.’
RPS’ success in this country is two decades in the making. Founded in 1970, the UK firm commenced Australian operations in 2003, with an initial focus expanding from energy to property and infrastructure.
RPS is one the world’s great project advisers, with around 5200 consultants across 125 countries and six continents. Its consultants have shaped many of the world’s largest infrastructure projects across transport, water, property, defence and government services, energy, and resources.
The firm has almost 1000 staff members in 22 offices in capital cities and regional towns across Australia and New Zealand. Offices in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea are part of the firm’s Asia-Pacific network and a focus of long-term expansion.
Advising a transport revolution
RPS has built a reputation as Australia’s leading independent adviser on major projects. The firm is working on many of the country’s largest transport projects, including Brisbane’s Cross River Rail, Sydney’s Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link, Parramatta Light Rail, Westconnex and Western Sydney Airport, as well as Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel Project, Level Crossing Removal Program and Airport Rail Link.
With rail enhancements a priority for so many cities, RPS is engaged on more than $150 billion in rail projects alone. The firm’s work on Sydney Metro – Australia’s largest public transport infrastructure project – typifies its work.
RPS has provided advisory and management consulting services to support the development of Sydney Metro’s business cases, and technical and delivery advice to help Transport for NSW and its partners to engage the community, secure complex approvals and procure with confidence.
‘From business cases to transaction support, engagement with government agencies and contributions to the project’s City & Southwest Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), RPS is honoured to work on Sydney Metro,’ says Thompson.
‘It’s a world-class transport project that will benefit Sydney for decades to come, and an example of the benefits of independent, integrated advice throughout complex projects.’
Thompson is proud of RPS’ work in Australia and is excited about its future. He expects that the infrastructure practice will expand the firm’s contributions to transport and utilities projects, as well as social infrastructure.
‘Australia will need more hospitals and schools as the population expands,’ says Thompson. ‘RPS has a key role to play in helping the country become more sustainable and livable through new or upgraded social infrastructure.’
He says RPS will export its Australian advisory expertise in coming years. ‘Australia is a world leader in infrastructure projects, and RPS is a leader in infrastructure advice. We want to take our capability to more projects and countries, and help communities to invest wisely and generate shared value from their infrastructure investments.’ ♦
Improving Queensland through projects like Brisbane Metro Ross Thompson, CEO – Australia Asia Pacific, RPS
To learn more about RPS, visit www.rpsgroup.com.
Transport: a catalyst for place making
Keolis Downer is Australia’s leading multimodal transport operator with global experience. The company’s customer-driven culture encourages it to constantly innovate and provide public transport services that are adapted to people’s needs.
A paradigm shift in public transport is happening as we are going through a major technological revolution that is changing the way we travel, modifying the mobility ecosystem, and encouraging us to be agile and to re-invent the way we do transport from a policy, regulation, infrastructure, transport offering and skills standpoint.
Keeping the customer top of mind has never been more important, due to evolving expectations driven by digitisation, the younger generations, the entry of new disruptive players, evergrowing and congested cities, and the increasing focus on our environmental impact and sustainable energies.
How do we embrace this change and turn this disruption into opportunities to deliver a better transport service and encourage the use of shared mobility?
What do local communities need, and how can transport contribute to creating new places where people want to live, study and work?
Newcastle is all about place creation
The NSW Government’s $650-million Revitalising Newcastle program delivered a new city where the CBD was reconnected to the waterfront. It created an environment that is more livable, sustainable and competitive. Sitting at the heart of all this is the Newcastle Light Rail.
Once the NSW Government had delivered the market certainty of new public transport infrastructure, and even before a length of track had been laid, the private sector began fuelling an investment pipeline, which has now delivered more than $3 billion worth of economic development. This development runs alongside the light rail line and clusters around the transport change.
Announced in 2013, approved in 2015, with construction completed in 2018, it was in February 2019, on a perfect summer’s day, that Newcastle Light Rail opened to the public and carried its first passengers – 20,000 of them, in fact. Patronage has exceeded all expectations since day one.
Since then, overall patronage on the public transport network has constantly increased and, in partnership with the City of Newcastle and Transport for NSW, Keolis Downer has been adding more mobility options for local communities. The real-time, on demand transport service area was expanded in June 2019, doubling the number of customer trips; in fact, 38 per cent of customer trips would not have been possible with a regular route service.
Overall, on the transport network month on month, we see an increase in patronage of 23 per cent across all modes.
New Park and Ride services have also been added, and from the end of 2019, an autonomous shuttle will enable the local community to test first-hand a sustainable and innovative mobility option firsthand.
Newcastle is an attractive city, where people are gradually changing their mobility habits. It represents a stepping stone, demonstrating how a transport project can contribute to the transformation of a city, and the opportunities this provides for place creation in the future. ♦
Newcastle Light Rail
