Helping transport professionals fast track their success
Smart transport professionals deliver the greatest impact for the resources that they have available, by using a systematic approach to planning and delivering lean transport projects.
Lean project management is about delivering more value for less. The key is stripping away everything that does not add value in terms of providing outcomes for the end user.
The biggest issue facing transport professionals is how to improve productivity – deliver more in a constrained resource environment.
As consumers, we are accustomed to the constant productivity improvements in technology and related services that lead to dramatic price reductions and performance improvements – known as disruptive innovation.
Past examples of disruptive innovations include the car compared to a horse and carriage, email compared to postal mail, or the personal computer compared to mainframe computers.
Can disruptive innovation be part of the solution to transport budget constraints?
Understanding the essence of transport integration is the first step to building a successful transport system.
The term “integration” gets used a lot by transport planners. But what does it really mean?
Let us consider the importance of integration from a user’s perspective. It can be distilled down to issues pertaining to time, cost, and quality of transport.
Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister, is attributed with the statement: Any man who rides a bus to work after the age of 30 can count himself a failure in life!
In early 2014 governments were jacking up public transport fares yet again. Sydney increased rail fares by 3.5% and bus fares by 2.4%, Melbourne increased fares across the board by 2.4% and Brisbane by 7.5% (three times annual inflation). “FARE-mageddon” quoted the Brisbane media.
Fare increases in Brisbane were reduced to 7.5% in 2013 (following the change of government), after 15% annual fare increases for a two years. Public transport patronage appears to have dropped significantly as a result.
The subsidy of the public transport farebox in Brisbane is about 73% (ie for every dollar fare that is paid by a user, the government has to kick in another 3 dollars), and this is just for operating costs.
So how do Australian public transport fares compare?
Smart growth aims to improve the quality of life in communities, with a strong sustainability emphasis, aiming to conserve energy and protect environmental quality.
A key smart growth theme is efficiency – reducing the socio-economic cost per-capita of infrastructure and services.
This requires transport and planning professionals to plan future land use patterns which are compact and provide a range of transport options, to reduce the need to travel, the number and length of trips and car dependance.
High performing transport professionals need to adopt a mindset of squeezing more out of their projects, doing more for less.
Using this approach means your project is more likely to be supported (funded), at a time when transport agencies are facing significantly reduced budgets.
In 2010 the UK Highways Agency funding levels were reduced from £2.6B down to a projected £2B in 2014-15, a reduction of 23% over five years, in the face of increased demand and cost increases. Budget cuts are being experienced in other areas in Europe, in North America and Australia.
Efficiency savings are not enough to meet these budget cuts and uniform cuts across all programs result in reduced outcomes – achieving less with less!
As Australia moves through the first quarter of the 21st century, the need to find new ways to fund essential transport infrastructure and services is becoming increasingly urgent.
This is attributable to the collision of several important elements:
Value capture funding allows a government to raise additional revenue by identifying the real beneficiaries of an investment, and enforcing a mechanism which recoups some that value to the government investor.
For transport investments, some of the primary benefits occur for lands in the project catchment. Benefits include the improved accessibility conferred on a site, and possibly improved amenity experienced by its inhabitants.
You are a professional if you are a member of a vocation or occupation that has specialised knowledge, skills, education or experience. For example an engineer or planner with a degree and three to five years experience can be considered a professional.
You put in a solid day’s work for a full day’s pay. While that’s something to be proud of, it doesn’t help you stand out much from the crowd.
In a field as specialised as transport, it pays to distinguish yourself from the rest. Most everybody in the industry has a university degree under their belts, and all transport professionals worth their salt keep abreast of the latest news and innovations in the industry as a matter of course. So, what steps can you take that will lift you to a place of notable prominence in the field?