Tim Tompson
Public transport provision is a wicked problem (Rittel & Webber 1973), in which many stakeholders have a vested interest in the way the services are delivered such as councils, transport service providers, local retail destinations, advertising companies, and citizens. Many of whom have quite different views of what a good design outcome is. Transport provision is one of the most complex, politically charged issues for most cities, and increasingly so in many locations, due to physical capacity constraints in developed areas, with already at-capacity infrastructure to service the city’s growing needs. Digital customer information systems have been seen as a low-cost means to improve customer experience on the transport network, but also as a means to improve the efficiency of the use of the physical infrastructure, for example, stations and train carriages, through assisting in managing crowds at peak periods or at times of disrupted service. But how can these digital information systems exist within the highly constrained transport environments, where physical space and citizen attention are a highly sought after resource from all stakeholders involved?
An academic research team and four partner organisations have been tasked with designing digital customer information technologies in transport interchanges in Sydney’s inner city that will improve the efficiency of the physical infrastructure and customer experience. This research project was funded by an Australian government-funded grant between three Sydney universities and four major stakeholders: the local council—The City of Sydney, consultancies ARUP and Grimshaw Architects, and the state public transport planning organisation, Transport for New South Wales. The academic and industry platform has regular workshops and consistent participation and support from all stakeholders. The project’s primary challenge was to deliver these in a way that ensures the decisions and effort are applied to those ideas that are valuable to all stakeholders in the project. As such, this paper emphasises the social and stakeholder interaction of the innovation platform, exploring the evolution from a systems-oriented perspective and demonstrating the complexities and competing goals of stakeholders in creating digital customer information systems.