Transit Unplugged

“We’re responsible for keeping London moving.”

Transport for London (TfL) hauls six million passengers every day on their buses alone. That’s intense. And it makes Simon Reed’s job crucial to the mobility of Londoners.

Reed, Head of Technology and Data, Surface Transport at TfL, does a deep dive into congestion charging – its history, how it works in London, and how it helps fund TfL. He gives Paul an update on their contactless card system and lets us in on how and why TfL has gone completely cashless.

Like most places in the Western world, bus ridership is declining. Reed talks about the potential reasons for the decline, drawing correlations to new mobility options and how authorities aren’t matching the supply of resources against the demand from the people. 

He also expresses his ideas on the death of single-function smartphone applications and offers alternative solutions to provide transportation information through the apps your riders already use. Finally, he questions public transit’s role of being the mobility aggregators, suggesting that open-sourced data and third parties might offer better solutions.

If you want to know more about TfL, check out their website.

Remember to check out transitunplugged.com to learn from top transit professionals and stay up to date to catch all the latest episodes.

“Our opportunity in Transport for Wales is to sync up all of these different modes and pull them together into a way that makes it as seamless and as easy to access for consumers as possible.”

Transport for Wales (TfW) is a non-profit agency that was created by the Welsh government three years ago to help deliver customer-focused services, expert advice to government, and infrastructure investment. It’s exciting to have Lewis Brencher, Communications Director of TfW, join Transit Unplugged and talk about such a newly formed transit authority.

Brencher shares the challenges of building and investing in rural and urban areas equally. He also gets into the unique competitive dialogue method they used during the procurement of their rail services. He then gets into the issue of declining bus ridership across Wales and the UK, and some potential strategies they are looking into to course-correct the ridership levels. Finally, Brencher talks about how intermodal ticketing and mobility as a service can improve travel, making it as easy as possible to travel across different modes.

If you want to know more about TfW, check out their website.

Remember to check out transitunplugged.com to learn from top transit professionals and stay up to date to catch all the latest episodes.

“What I love about transport [is] you’re changing people’s lives. You’re changing cities.”

What do India, Qatar, and Australia have in common? It’s where our next guest of Transit Unplugged oversees some of the most innovative public transport operations in the world. Transit Unplugged is lucky to have Leila Frances, President Middle East and Hyderabad of Keolis and Chairman of Keolis Downer, as our guest this week.

Frances discusses the automated metro services in India and Qatar, which makes Keolis the world leader in automated metro operations. She also does a deep dive into the importance of data in decision making. Data can give everyone (employees, passengers, politicians, residents) a better understanding of how public transport affects their daily lives. It can impact operations by analyzing trends – seeing the correlation of external factors that impact and extend dwell times. You can use data and real-time information to communicate with passengers, creating a positive passenger and community experience by setting expectations during times of expansion and building individualized experiences for your riders. 

She also shares her insight on her approach to management through their visualization rooms. By holding everyone accountable and giving them operational information (through KPIs), it gives every employee a better understanding of what is going on within the business. Finally, she talks about how on-demand service, the potential of flying public transport, and Hyperloop might factor into the future of transportation.

If you want to know more about Keolis, Keolis Downer (Australia and New Zealand), the Doha Metro Project (Qatar), or Keolis Hyderabad (India), please check out the associated links.

Remember to check out transitunplugged.com to learn from top transit professionals and stay up to date to catch all the latest episodes.

“If we don’t need to do it, dump it. If we do need to do it, we’ll make it a lot better.”

Transit Unplugged continues its journey through the United Kingdom. On this episode, Paul is in Glasgow, Scotland to visit the third oldest subway system in the world, dating back to 1896. While there he chats with Gordon Maclennan, Chief Executive of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT). Having the third oldest subway in the world means major modernizations are taking place. Maclennan dives into the £288-million plan to modernize the system track and station refurbishments, tunnel upgrades, and new railcars.

The two, once again, discuss the unique elements of a deregulated bus service, one that spans the entirety of the UK. They specifically chat about the interesting aspect of competitors sharing the same bus stop and the timetable challenges that sometimes arise because of their competing nature.

An engineer by trade, Maclennan arrived at SPT in 2006 and became the Chief Executive in 2010. He expresses his enjoyment of his role, saying, “I do enjoy it, and it’s a very, very worthwhile and fruitful career, in terms of your personal development.”

If you want to know more about SPT, check out their website.

Remember to check out transitunplugged.com to learn from top transit professionals and stay up to date to catch all the latest episodes.

“Anywhere in the world, running quality, high-frequency service draws people in, giving people great service at a value that they cannot beat.”

Giles Fearnley, Managing Director for First Bus, is a great ambassador and evangelist for the transportation industry. First Bus runs about 19% of buses operating within the UK, but like many places, bus ridership is on the decline at ~2% per year.

Fearnley discusses how congestion issues and the economy are predominant factors in declining ridership. His strategy to combat declining ridership is to improve the customer experience. Some of the tactics involve providing new faring options, ticketing and real-time information through the First Bus mobile app, increasing bus frequency, and changing their bus networks. The technology enables riders to leverage information and different payment options. Finally, the redesigned networks better connect people to jobs, shopping, universities, etc. This change has helped Bristol increase ridership ~46% over five years

If you want to know more about First Bus, check out their website.

Remember to check out transitunplugged.com to learn from top transit professionals and stay up to date to catch all the latest episodes.