Cathy O’Sullivan 00:00
Cathy, hello and welcome to CIO Leadership Live Australia. I’m Cathy O’Sullivan, editorial director for Foundry in Australia and New Zealand. And my guest today is Kurt Brissett, who is the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at transport for New South Wales. He is also our CIO of the year in the 2024 CIO 50, Australia. Welcome to the podcast, Kurt, and congratulations again on taking out the top spot.
Kurt Brissett 00:33
Thanks so much for that, Cathy. And it’s lovely to be chatting to you again today. It was an incredible honour to receive this award and to be recognized amongst the CIO50. Full credit, though, must go to the wonderful technology teams that we have at Transport for New South Wales. Is this award really is a testament to their dedication, commitment and amazing achievements.
Cathy O’Sullivan 00:55
So look for those who are listening from maybe outside Australia outside New South Wales, can you give us a bit of an overview of the organisation and tell us about what you and your team are responsible for?
Kurt Brissett 01:09
Sure, I have the fortune of leading the technology and innovation team at Transport for New South Wales. The agency was first established in November 2011 and we’re effectively responsible for delivering transportation services for the people of New South Wales. We facilitate movement of people and goods on roads, trains, busses, ferries, Metro, our light rail right across our point-to-point transport, vehicles on demand, services, community transport, and, of course, walking and cycling. 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. We’re incredibly passionate about putting our customers and communities at the center of everything we do and partnering with operational agencies, private operators and industry to deliver passenger focus services and projects and and 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, our 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.
Cathy O’Sullivan 02:33
So let’s get into some of the innovation that you and the team have been delivering. One of the big successes has been the development of the southern hemisphere’s first contactless payment system for transport, which I have used many times on trips to Sydney. So tell us about how that contactless transport system came about, and what were the lessons learned during its implementation?
Kurt Brissett 02:57
Well, first, I’m glad to hear that you’ve used our public transport network and also the contactless payment system, but this innovation really came at the back of listening to our customers. Opal is something that has been incredibly successful. Over four and a half billion trips have been processed by our Opal ticketing system since 2012 but we recognize that our customers wanted more choice and convenience around how they access and pay for their travel. So what we did was set about designing and implementing a way for customers to use their credit, debit or link device to tap on and off the network receive the same open fares, discounts and benefits customers no longer had to queue at a ticketing machine or at one of our retailers. They no longer had to get their hands on an Opal Card and preload their funds. They could simply turn up, use their phone or watch and pay as they traveled, no hassle, no fuss. And it really has been a revelation and has completely transformed the way our customers use public transport now, with 60 per cent of all adult trips now being taken using contactless payments, and with 65 per cent of all contactless taps being done the phone or a customer’s watch.
Cathy O’Sullivan 04:17
So expanding on that just a bit further, you also introduced Apple Express mode. So, what customer insights led to this decision, and how has that changed the way people use public transport?
Kurt Brissett 04:29
Yes, Apple Express was a great product enhancement that we launched last year, and for those unfamiliar, for our customers that use Apple or Samsung pay, for that matter, we upgraded our contacts payment system to automatically recognise when one of these devices is in proximity of our Opal readers, and the smart device is automatically woken up and authenticated, which allows a customer to seamlessly tap it to open a gate at a train station. Or border, bus, ferry, light rail or metro service. For that matter, the genesis of this was that with the high adoption of digital wallet usage amongst our customers, we recognized that there was friction associated with the time that it was taking to tap these devices. In some instances, this was resulting in customer queuing frustration and was also having an impact on the on time running of some of our transport services, such as busses. So to address this pain point, we worked with our ticketing vendor and Apple to roll this new feature out, and it has been incredibly well received by our customers, and 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. So it’s a fantastic value add.
Cathy O’Sullivan 05:55
Now we can’t go a day without talking about AI, but one of the uses that you are using AI for transport for New South Wales is Asset AI, which I believe, detects road conditions and defects. So, can you tell us a bit more about this solution, and I guess its impact on road safety and maintenance for the state?
Kurt Brissett 06:18
Yeah. Asset AI is an incredibly innovative home grown product, essentially maintaining our roads and filling in potholes is a constant struggle for transport. For New South Wales, and as it is for our local councils, it is a never-ending job that invariably can present safety risks to our drivers and is increasingly costly to state and local governments, particularly the longer the assets are not maintained, the more expensive the remediation becomes. So 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 that are installed on board rubbish trucks, of all things, to detect potholes and cracks on roads, allowing councils and operators to swiftly respond and undertake proactive maintenance. And it has been incredible success, and now we are looking at how we can use the same technology to also sell for a range other transport related use cases, and I guess that is what we found with a lot of our innovation in technology at transport. Whilst 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.
Cathy O’Sullivan 07:44
So a world first for the agency was the mobility platform. So, can you tell us about what that how that came about, and where you’re heading with it as a Transport Agency?
Kurt Brissett 07:56
Yes, this is something that I’m incredibly proud of, and there’s a real success story of the value you can derive from investing in supporting and ultimately trusting your people. We are incredibly fortunate to have an amazing team at transport for New South Wales who are passionate about technology and passionate about delivering amazing outcomes for our passengers the transport we recognize the value of leveraging technology to deliver connected and personalised journeys for our passengers, and that was why we developed transport connect. Now 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 in designing and delivering this platform, we adopted an iterative test and learn approach where we progressively built the platform and front-end digital experience out. Now we did this by identifying specific passenger use cases and services that we knew we wanted to deliver in order to provide a more intuitive and consistent digital customer experience now some of the various transport services that are now accessible via this platform include access to our on demand shuttle services. We offer digital self-service for our passengers that register and use their contactless payments. We provide free commute car parking for those that use public transport via our park and ride product. And we’re also going to be providing access to our train link, customer reservation system using this platform, we’ve also leveraged this tech stack, though interestingly, to undertake a series of trials, including an Opal Digital Car trial and also an Opal Plus multi modal subscription trial. It’s really demonstrated that with a small cross functional development team that you can be incredibly innovative and rapidly launch trials amongst small groups of customers in order to validate certain hypothesis that you might have and ultimately refine the product proposition in order for it to become more scalable.
Cathy O’Sullivan 10:12
So lots of projects Kurt, lots going on at Transport for New South Wales. So when you look at it, then what has been the most challenging project within your portfolio, and how did you overcome those challenges?
Kurt Brissett 10:26
We’ve had a few challenging projects, but one that’s top of mind, I’d have to say, is is one that is currently in flight, and that relates to our replacement of our train link central reservation system. This has been a little bit like open heart surgery, as the system is the cornerstone of how our frontline staff, our contact centre and back-office staff, operate regional rail and coach services. It’s also a system that our customers use to plan, book, pay and manage their regional journeys. Now, customers and staff are increasingly demanding a world class digital experience, and with this project, we’re really optimistic and excited about what the future holds for our regional customer technology.
Cathy O’Sullivan 11:15
So you’ve given credit to the team, and of course, you know you couldn’t do what you’ve done without such a high performing team. So talk to us about, you know, how you’re driving engagement within your team, and you know, what kind of strategies have you used to achieve and maintain such high engagement and retention rates within the team?
Kurt Brissett 11:38
Yeah, one of the things that I’ve been really big on is recruitment based on character. We are increasingly within technology and innovation, hiring grads and junior developers based on attributes such as their ability to learn, to be creative, to challenge the status quo, and we assess their ability to work, ultimately, as part of the team and as well as obviously their an assessment of their skills, knowledge and attributes that demonstrate that they are capable and willing to grow, to develop and ultimately, in time to take on more responsibility. For example, we put out candidates who are applying to be testers through a fairly extensive hands on selection process, which is invariably team based, in order to really test the applicant suitability in a challenging, uncertain scenario based activity, and in doing this, we have managed to recruit some absolute top end talent and create some really cohesive and close knit teams that are ultimately engaged, who are passionate about what they do, and who have bought into our values at Transport.
Cathy O’Sullivan 13:00
So there’s, you know, many studies have shown that, you know, there is that strong link between staff engagement and customer satisfaction. So can you elaborate a bit on how you foster you know that culture and how it translates into customer service?
Kurt Brissett 13:18
I guess what I found is, is that if you create a team that is outcome focused, who are passionate about the customer and passionate about the products that they deliver, who are naturally creative, and if you have a strong brand that your people can get behind and really buy into and who want to retain the strength of the brand, then that invariably translates into a great customer experience and in turn, high customer satisfaction. And we’ve seen that time and time again across our portfolio of customer technology, products with ticketing and customer information, consistently achieving scores of over 95 per cent customer satisfaction.
Cathy O’Sullivan 14:11
So along with your day-to-day role, you’re also chair of the transport veterans board, and you’ve significantly increased the veteran hires at transport for New South Wales. So, can you tell us a bit about your own background, your own time in the Defence Force, and what drives that commitment to veterans? And I guess, how have you tailored roles to those unique skill sets?
Kurt Brissett 14:36
Yeah, this is something that I’m really passionate about. I began my career in the forces back in 1999 and that seems like a long time ago now, where I enlisted in the Army as an officer cadet and undertook my tertiary studies and army officer training at the Australian Defence Force Academy and then, in turn, Royal Military College of Duntroon and before being assigned to the Royal Australian signals Corps, which is the technology arm of the Australian Defence Force. So, for 15 years, I’ve worked across both conventional and special forces, during which time I served on seven overseas operational deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, deployed right throughout the Middle East and UAE, Solomon Islands and Indonesia. And I was privileged during that time to lead some of our finest soldiers in some volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments overseas. However, the adversity certainly meant that not only did this mean that that the teams needed to bond and rely on one another, but it ultimately meant that I needed to grow up fairly quickly as a as a young officer and refine my approach to leading teams. So when I left the the military, though, I experienced first-hand the challenges of transitioning from the Defence Force into civilian employment. It was difficult. It took me a good nine months to land my first job out of young and I think I during that time, I probably applied for over 200 jobs. I attended, at last count, at least 20 interviews before finally, there was someone that looked beyond this military type who’d only served in the Army and gave him a chance and and for that, I will be forever grateful. And since that time, I’ve had some amazing mentors who have coached me and have been so gracious in offering their time to provide advice, guidance and ultimately career coaching. So at Transport, we’ve established our veterans employee network, of which I’m the co-chair. Our group really is dedicated to empowering veterans by providing meaningful employment opportunities at transport for New South Wales. What we’re doing is we’re attempting to bridge the gap between military service and the civilian workforce by fostering an inclusive community where veterans skills, their leadership and their dedication are recognized and valued, and so through personalized support through professional development and, of course, partnering, we’re creating pathways for veterans to thrive in their post service lives, contributing their unique strengths to Transport and ultimately to society at large.
Cathy O’Sullivan 17:58
So then for anyone listening who might be a veteran, or indeed have a family member who is a veteran, what should what do they need to consider when transitioning from the Defence Force? And you know, what are the types of technology opportunities that exist at Transport for New South Wales?
Kurt Brissett 18:18
Yeah. Firstly, I’d encourage you, if there’s anyone out there who’s interested in a role at transport, feel free to reach out to me personally. I am here to help, as are the rest of the Veterans Employment Network at Transport. But we always have lots of roles going across Transport. That’s one of the good things about transport for New South Wales, it’s a large organisation. We have circa 30,000 employees across virtually every career and and employment type you could think of. Because ultimately, we are not just operating transportation services, but we’re also delivering large scale projects and for that, not only do we need technology roles, you know, and yes, we we require more developers, we require more testers, you know, we require more product managers. But there’s also a raft of other roles which appeal and lend themselves to other skills, such as project managers and business analysts and change managers and cyber security experts. And of course, we have a whole range of frontline staff roles across our various modes. So, you know, invariably, what we find with ex-Defence and veterans is as they possess a lot of the soft skills which are applicable, which stand them in good stead across a myriad of different roles. They’re disciplined. They’re excellent planners. They work very well with team that they receive some of the best leadership training going. And so I encourage any employer out there who is considering a veteran to give them a chance and to take the time to hear about their story. And we definitely need more people from all walks of life in the industry. Yeah, listen. I’m very fortunate that earlier this year we launched our transport technology strategy, which is the first time that we developed a unified strategy that covers customer technology, our operational technology, our enterprise, it for our workforce, as well as emerging technology. And what it does is it really lays out, what are our strategic priorities, and where do we want to be from a transport agency perspective, and what role do we see technology in enabling that. And so, anyone that is listening to this podcast, I’d encourage you to jump online and check it out. But we will be increasingly designing and delivering connected and personalised product offerings and experiences for our passengers and our customers. We acknowledge that we must, and we always will, provide accessible ways in which to use transport for all of our customers, but we also recognise that a large proportion of our customers are increasingly digitally savvy and mobile centric, and because of that, we need to start looking at some of the offerings and ensuring that we meet the needs of our customers. We’re desiring proactive, digital, two-way customer interactions, and we need to be designing accordingly.
Cathy O’Sullivan 20:23
So great to see the what you’re driving there at Transport for New South Wales. So looking ahead, then Kurt, what are the big innovations that you see coming down the line for Transport for New South Wales, and how do you plan to keep the state a leader in digital transport solutions? Now you’ve already rolled out things like Asset AI. But what other roles do you see in terms of that AI and machine learning piece into the future of public transport? Do you see them continuing to enhance that operational efficiency and customer experience?
Kurt Brissett 22:37
AI will and in fact, it is transforming currently our employee and customer experience. We will be approaching AI in a strategic way, and there’ll probably be two main methods that will be looking at AI. 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 that that is needs to be designed in a way to really solve a specific opportunity or problem that we might have. We see these AI solutions as being necessary in order to streamline our business processes, to manage our assets better and to ultimately operate more efficiently as a Transport Agency. But also there’s the opportunity to personalize the digital customer experience. And I’m really excited by the direction that AI is heading. And we are already seeing this nexus beginning to form between robotics AI and improved digital connectivity. And we’re seeing this, you know, classic example is really the proliferation of connected autonomous vehicles in in other jurisdictions. And it’s really this nexus of connectivity, robotics and AI, which is, which is enabling this to transform the way that people will be moving the future.
Cathy O’Sullivan 24:22
Well, congratulations again on your CIO50 win. Looking forward to seeing what next you and the team do at Transport for New South Wales. Kurt Brissett, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at Transport for New South Wales, thank you so much for joining us today.
Kurt Brissett 24:39
It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much. Cathy.
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