When someone is ill, there are two choices available to them. On the one hand, they can take painkillers or lozenges to mask their sore throat or headache. But while this makes their symptoms disappear for a few moments, it doesn’t address their underlying syndrome. It’s more desirable to take antibiotics as these will both… Read more
Posts Categorized: Ideas
How ‘wicked’ are your public transport operations?
Transport planning is a wicked problem. A wicked problem is a problem so complex it seems insoluble. Take the health issue of smoking in Australia – stakeholders include government, consumers, the tobacco industry, the health sector, and the rights and freedoms of the public. Different political parties don’t see eye to eye, people hold different… Read more
Customer service and the ethics of influencing travel behaviour to improve public transport operations
Influence is a powerful phenomenon. As people go about their daily lives, they are pushed and pulled in various directions by forces as varied as advertising, the news media, their significant other, even signs and information points – these all influence the decisions they make. These relationships are positive if they are in the best… Read more
Using personalised digital information to increase peak spreading on public transport services
Public transport providers come under pressure in peak periods. Providing for high passenger volumes on networks running at their upper capacity means time windows for recovering from service disruptions are smaller and more can potentially go wrong if delays with one service cascade into another. In Sydney, like many other cities around the world, the… Read more
Keeping customers happy and transport operations stable: reducing the steady state
Imagine a bucket with water in it. It’s got a hole in the bottom and a tap above it. Depending on how big that hole is, and how much the tap is flowing, there’s some level of water that stays the same. In some ways train stations hold true to this analogy. Trains act as… Read more
How do you get positive change in public transport? The role of ‘burning platforms’
The idea of a burning platform comes from a story of a man on a platform in the sea. It catches fire and he must choose to stay on, and likely be burnt, or jump and try and swim to safety. The best choice is to jump – even though it’s not the most attractive… Read more
Re-framing a bus stop: increasing customer access to essential services at transport hubs with digital information
The typical Australian bus stop is a seat, shelter and timetable. It could just be left as that – it functions perfectly well as is. But if the bus stop’s a point people come to just before they come home, what other things might they have to do? It’s possible they need to pick up… Read more
Why people are still important in automated public transport operations
Will a system that tells passengers where to stand on the platform be fully automated, or run by some sort of operator? In reality, it’s likely to be a little of both. A base system will probably have an algorithm which optimises where people stand on the platform, determined by all data collected by the… Read more
Digital information and customer service in public transport: the Service Quality Loop
In the past rail engineers often used to joke that train services would be fine if it weren’t for all those pesky passengers messing up their system. Howard Collins, new CEO of Sydney Trains, made reference to this old joke in his first public speaking engagement in his new role at an IPA luncheon. He… Read more