Welcome to the first episode of 2025 for the world's leading transit

executive podcast, Transit Unplugged.

I'm your host, Paul Comfort.

We always like to have a top leader in our industry as the first episode

of a New Year, and on today's episode, we have the privilege of hearing from

one of the most decorated leaders in public transportation, Howard Collins.

This is the second of five interviews from my recent tour in Australia.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Howard at the Bus Industry Confederation

Conference in Hobart, Tasmania.

We enjoyed a wide ranging conversation while sitting outside in the beautiful

Hobart Harbor on a crisp, sunny morning.

Howard's career in public transport is nothing short of remarkable.

From serving as Chief Operating Officer of the London Underground, to becoming

the Chief Executive of Sydney Trains and Group Rail at Transport for New South

Wales, to Acting Secretary for Transport for New South Wales, and now Coordinator

General at Transport for New South Wales in Sydney, Australia's largest city.

Howard is also an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, or an OBE.

In addition to this impressive career, Howard even has a recipe in my

cookbook Comfort Food for sweet chili, chicken, and salad wrap on page 85.

I think you'll really enjoy hearing from one of our industry's most experienced

and respected leaders on this, the first episode of 2025, Howard Collins.

Let's dive into our conversation.

Howard Collins, great to have you on the show again, my friend.

Thank you so much for inviting me back.

Yeah, we're here sitting outside of the harbor in Hobart, Tasmania, man.

It's a beautiful place, you know, it has a lot of historic culture,

the sun is shining, it couldn't be a better place to attend.

What is the bus?

Conference.

That's right.

Yep.

So let's talk about what you're doing now in Sydney, in your role there.

How long have you been there, by the way?

I've been there over 11 years now.

Started as the Chief Executive of Sydney Trains, but four years ago

moved to Chief Operating Officer, now Coordinator General for the whole state.

What does that do?

Well, it generally coordinates, and that's bringing together all the modes

of public transport and a little bit of air services and roads to make

sure that we work seamlessly together.

And the state is New South Wales?

New South Wales, seven times as big as the UK, as I remind people,

not quite as big as the US.

Really?

But it's a big, big, you know, country, big state.

Yeah.

A thousand kilometers by about 800 kilometers wide.

So a pretty big place.

Last time I was here, you took me to your Rail Operations Center,

which wasn't even operational yet.

You were just testing it.

Paul, you should come back here.

It is an amazing, it's still after What, four or five years

now, it's, it really is booming.

the important thing is recognizing that the screen, the 32 meter

screen by, by 7 meters, that was made in the good old US of A.

That's the largest TV screen in the Southern Hemisphere or something?

It is, yeah, yeah.

And, and over a hundred people on shift are in that network, and it is, it's

almost like a dream come true for me, because I had a blank piece of paper,

and working with people like Tony Eade and Liz Ward, we sat down and said,

let's check out all the control rooms and control centers around the world.

What's the best?

What's, what people have changed?

And we created this flexible floor layout which you can move around at any time.

But I always say it's a bit like the Starship Enterprise.

You know, you've got Captain Kirk in the middle, you've got

engineering on one side, you've got comms on the other, you've got

social media, you've got drivers.

It's sort of like, the center panning out.

That way.

It works pretty well with us and they work in their own little hubs.

We're bringing more technology in.

We're bringing new digital signaling.

It is, you know, it will change over time, but the rock, as we call

it, yes, is, is, going really well.

Yes.

Well, let's talk about the people in your agency.

Last time I was here a few years ago, you were telling me about

programs to get more women into bus drivers and operators of trains.

What's the new innovations you're working on with your own employees?

Well, starting from the top to the bottom, you know.

Our top transport executive is over 50 percent women now, in fact 60 percent

women, but we have worked, you know, at the frontline place where we've

encouraged women to drive buses, to offer flexibility for their work rates,

because I think that is important.

But also we've had big campaigns on the rail network where now you're

more likely to see a woman driving a train, a new trainee, than a man.

And it's good to say.

We are open to anybody.

We want to encourage everyone from every background to

reflect the community we serve.

When you think about it, 50 percent of people who travel on our trains are women.

Huge majority of those people also are migrant workers who travel around.

We want to make sure it feels like home for those people.

We want to make sure we encourage people who see a career.

And it is a career, there's so much you can do in transport,

not just driving a bus.

That's right.

You can start from sweeping the platforms and end up being,

you know, a senior manager.

Or do something else.

That's right.

Yeah, that's great.

It reminds me of our mutual friend Andy Byford, who now is in the U.

S.

working with Amtrak on high speed rail.

Yeah.

He always, told me how he kind of curated his career.

He said, Paul, I want to spend a few years doing this, a few years doing that.

And there's so many aspects to public transportation, isn't there?

HR, finance, IT, procurement, legal, operations.

Yeah, and he

was and has been a great buddy of mine.

I remember when he first started as a graduate trainee

and I was in middle management.

But Andy's right, you know, you can pick and choose, you know, he's

travelled the world, he's given it the best knowledge, he's still talked

about it in Australia, although he left, you know, quite a few years ago.

Yeah.

Because he was good at one thing above everything else, and

that was working with people.

Whether it was the unions, the frontline staff, whether it

was people at senior level or politicians, Andy was good at that.

And we all, if you look across our fraternity of leaders We

are about people leadership.

We're not about assets, you know, in the old days of the engineering barons

making signaling or rolling stock.

Yeah, it's all about the heavy rail.

It's all about the warm wear, the people, the people that we work with.

That's right.

And if you show respect, support, they will become a loyal workforce

and they will be great people.

Future leaders, you know, for us.

Yeah.

How many people, like, is in your total workforce?

Do you know?

Well, in, in transport for New South Wales, there's over 30, 000.

Wow.

Of all walks of life.

You know, in Sydney trains, there are about 16, 000

people, which I looked after.

now we're, we're, you know, I've got Maritime, I've got, people

who manage bus contracts, I've got people who manage the road network.

they're great people.

And, and what I'm encouraging is for people to feel that they have the

opportunity to develop and progress.

Let's talk about your structure, the government structure there

and how you, how it all works.

It's, it's very interesting to me.

Yeah, it is.

It's a bit like the States in the way that you have a very strong and

powerful state based government, okay, who really in public transport

has done a lot of the investment.

Federal governments, you know, they're responsible for our protection in terms

of the army, their, their taxation.

And some of the aged care, but we are now seeing a better collaboration

between federal politicians and our New South Wales politicians where

we can support, you know, the whole basis is trying to get the people

back on public transport, trying to remove the heavy use on car journeys.

When I lived in London and worked in London, about 70 percent of all journeys

in London were by public transport and the rest was by private car.

You know, congestion charging, fuel prices, it's crazy to own a car in London.

Here, it's the other way around.

Less than 20 percent of journeys are made by public transport.

Everyone seems to have their parking space, everyone believes they're

entitled to drive everywhere.

What we've got to do is make public transit more attractive.

Turn up and go.

Modern vehicles, safe, secure, air conditioned.

then people will come.

Yes.

Particularly for the youngsters.

I think the younger generation do realize the importance of protecting the

environment, but also the practicality of working and living in cities.

Yeah.

Cities are still growing.

Whether we like it or not, Sydney will be nine million in the next

25 years and we need to build the infrastructure now, before people come.

And that requires investment.

I know that, in America, Australia, Europe.

During the pandemic, a lot of people went fare free and now there's, you

know, some still vestiges of that.

But like Mohamed Mezghani says and like I say and other people, look,

we need more transit, not less.

And when you do polls and surveys, people say they don't say I'm not

riding because I got to pay a buck.

They say I'm not riding because it doesn't go where I want to go.

It doesn't feel safe.

It doesn't go as often as I want to go.

Absolutely.

There is a sweet spot in transport where you can charge a reasonable

fare to cover it basic costs.

Yeah.

But we know most places do not do that.

And if they do, the faires are astronomical.

You know, have you, have you gone to London?

Occasionally you'll go there and you'll find that you are, you

are almost buying the transit system, not just traveling on it.

I do think though, that, you know, mayor of London has done some good things to

change that, and I do think what we need to do is be realistic about pricing.

Almost if you make it free or cheap, people then abuse it, you know?

Yeah.

They don't value it as much.

They don't value it as much.

Yeah.

There again, I do believe that what we've got to do is consider this, just

like the pipes of the water, the gas mains, is it's a utility, it's a service,

we need to provide that, particularly to places where there are elderly.

or people who need public transport who can't drive anymore.

We have people who can't fly, so we put them on the train and

we charge them 25 bucks to, or 30 bucks to go a long distance,

because that's what we need to do.

Yeah.

Provide that social support for a lot of I think that's very fair.

That's the equity side, right?

We want to make sure that people that need a little extra help get it.

Yeah, yeah.

There's nothing wrong with that.

I actually think we need to do that.

And I think the balance is here, you know, I always look over the Harbour

Bridge, 50 cars equals one bus.

Yeah.

You know, we should be giving more priority to, bus transit systems.

We should, building as we're doing in Parramatta, a light rail system,

which is the next level up in terms of quality and, level of ride for

people around Parramatta City, which is a big city in its own right.

And the future, what do you see for the future for transport

here in Australia and the world?

Well we're, we're at a tipping point.

I really think that's important.

Australia is growing, it'll be another five million of which,

you know, two thirds will be skilled migration coming into this

country, a third is our own growth.

We have got to now work through the strategy of how we provide

great public transport to encourage people out of their cars.

and into mass transit.

That is a challenge for us.

Otherwise, you know, I always say you can build new highways, you can build

them 16 lanes wide, go to Los Angeles and you can still be in a traffic jam.

That's right.

You can't, you can't build yourself out of a private car.

And what we can't do is swap, you know, autonomous vehicles which take up as

much space with one person in them, because that's not going to fix it.

What you need to do is the densification of travel, you know, in a, in a very,

you know, professional and a very safe way, but people In trains, buses, moving

them seamlessly to the city on a frequent basis, you know, why bother to drag

your car out, find somewhere to park, when you can actually turn up and go.

The one thing we need to fix is that last mile, in old

fashioned, I still call it a mile.

No, that's right, yeah.

and I think that's something in Australia we're really trying to tackle now.

How do you get from your home, which might be a couple of kilometres,

to the station without, you know, clutting up the corridors with

thousands of throwaway electric bikes.

How do we do that safely?

How do we provide people with travel when it's raining or it's so hot

that you won't want to be on your scooter or your electric bike?

How do we do that?

That is a critical part of our work to understand how we connect people from

their home to where they want to go to.

Seamlessly.

What else is going on?

Any, any other cool, great things happening?

Well, I think, the, the great news, For us is we're still seeing

that investment by government.

We've got a government now who's very very supportive in getting people out

of cars and into public transport.

We're also seeing investment in our next generation of the Opal card We're

going out to market for that in the next few months to get in the best of the

world's leaders when it comes to account based ticketing or you know the new

way of procuring stuff that the we all live with I'm in love with Uber and all

those others, so we're looking at that.

We're certainly on a mission to really clean up our bus, fleet.

and I'm, by 2035, we're hoping to have all of the vehicles in Sydney converted

to either hydrogen or battery electric, and that's a big challenge for us.

And then, of course, more metros are on their way.

You know, Paul, in five years time, there'll be another few lines operating.

The city needs it.

We need to get people back on public transport, and we're getting there.

Yeah.

Now you all are part of the Commonwealth, right?

Uh, of, of the United Kingdom.

And you and your pals with some of the people there that

run the transit system, right?

Our friend Andy Lord was just down here with you.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think, um, whilst Australia is very much an independent country

and has their own views, I think it is important that we work together.

And there's, there is a, you know, a smallish community

of leaders around the world.

who actually have, worked in Australia, London, Hong Kong,

Singapore, and even in the USA.

And Canada!

And Canada, you know, some really, really important that we share those ideas.

I always say, I brought no original thought when I arrived

in Sydney, 11 years ago.

I just borrowed, begged, and knew some of other people's brilliant ideas.

Yeah.

and sometimes it's important to recognize the great ideas that people

have You know, in your new city.

They just haven't been given permission to go ahead and do it.

Well, you bring, you bring a lot of, wisdom, I think, from those experiences.

And you can share that here, right?

Yeah, and I think, you know, I've been in transit 47 years and counting.

10 more than me.

You got me by 10, yeah.

It's time to download and share.

You know, not all my experiences were great experience, but the one thing

you get with, seniority, if I say age, is you learn a lot, sometimes

just a one time experience, the chances to share it with other people.

Whether they take it up, it's up to them.

Right.

You know, it's like a downloading a computer which is full of data.

Since you do have 47 years, I don't want to let you get away without

sharing some of your wisdom that you've, that you've gleaned along the years.

You can pass on others.

Let's start with, a lot of people that listen to our show

are like my friend Schneider St.

Preux from Miami who started as a bus driver and now has

become the Superintendent of Bus Operations for Miami.

So for a mid level manager who wants to move up, do you have any career advice?

Yeah, I've, I've, I've, I've We was there very much in middle management,

you know, I started as a cadet out of school And Schneider well done.

I think it's a great great great Example of how in this industry you don't

have to be brought in from outside or have You know, the top qualifications,

our organization, you know, as I said before, get as much qualifications you

can, you know, you're competing against a market which has more information,

but make it relevant, you know, do those courses which are relevant

to transit, it really is important.

Some of the The chartered bases we have in the UK or some of the international

courses are well worth doing and the other thing is Always be there.

Be in the, be in the moment.

You know, my advice to younger people is you can't progress your career via Teams.

You can't do it remotely.

We expect every transit worker to turn up every day, drive a bus,

drive a train, be on the platforms, you know, doing all the signalling.

As managers, we need to expect the same out of us.

So we be there, because the other tip is, when you're there, as a

passenger or as a manager, you get the experience that everyone else gets.

You don't smell new paint like the Queen Mother of England used to smell every

time and had great facilities around you.

You see it.

Good and bad.

And also you share it with, the staff you work with.

The other thing, my tip is, nothing is beneath you.

So if there's a spill on the platform, or there's litter on the ground, or

there's something happening, and the staff are under pressure, offer to help.

Not as the boss to tell them what to do, they're the supervisors,

just to give them a hand.

You know, sometimes it's just that five minutes of support they need,

which makes a big difference.

And the visibility, like Andy Byford, and many of my colleagues, visibility

and being out there, being approachable, but also, being, You know, not just

turning up with a bunch of other, you know, managers, like some delegation.

Yes.

You know, go on your own, feel comfortable, you know, learn those things.

And if you can, the opportunity to share with other people from

other agencies, because quite often we have the same problems.

It might be bus and rail working together.

It might be, you know, meeting people like yourself, Paul,

and listening to your podcast.

I often think these are the same issues I'm facing and how great it is that I can

hear from other people around the world just by the click on a, on my computer.

Yeah.

So great opportunity, but as a middle manager, energy, enthusiasm,

get out there and be there.

That's excellent.

All right.

What about for senior leaders?

for CEOs, such as you've been, and the ones we've mentioned today, such as my

friend Kevin Quinn, who heads up TransLink in Vancouver, who used to work with me.

He shows up on his own, like you mentioned, by the way.

He doesn't have a big entourage.

He's there.

So give us some advice for the CEOs of the world.

I think when you first walk in to the boardroom, you know, as a new CEO,

it's always worth not reacting to the first person who knocks on your door,

tells you how things are good or bad.

Okay.

You know, they're the people who want to tell you everything.

Wait for that 4th or 5th conversation with other people to really

understand how the place works.

I often found the executive support team, if they've been there a

while, they know everything.

I, you know, I've, I work with a lady who's been the CEO's

executive support for 20 years.

She knows everything and everybody and certainly when I first walked through

the door gave me advice about, you know, All those things which are important.

The other thing is, it is getting out there.

You can't drive your, lead your organisation from the

boardroom or your desk.

You need to go everywhere.

I had a chart on my wall, had all 360 stations and I would tick them.

Take them off where I've been, even if it was five minutes to say hello,

or drop into the, you know, where they maintain the trains, or do some, you

know, resurface the signalling equipment.

Get out there and see what people do.

We do a lot of work on nights and weekends.

In the transport industry, a lot of the business comes to life

while we do maintenance overnight.

So it's not a nine to five job.

As a CEO, or as a senior leader, think about the times when you need to

understand by putting your steel toe cap boots on in your gloves and your

high visibility jacket and you know working and understanding what people

do at night as well as during the day.

We're a 24 7 business.

So We were chatting just before this about, in America, we've been

having what I deem an OEM crisis.

A year ago, we had five bus manufacturers in the United States.

Now we're down to two.

What's happening here in Australia in that, in that regard?

Well, it is a real challenge because I am passionate about creating jobs, buying

local and having manufacturing back in Australia, if not New South Wales.

But the challenge is the Chinese and many other foreign manufacturers are

much more mature in their markets.

They know the products, they build reliable buses and at a low price.

So what we have now is you have a fledgling industry of

bus building, in, Australia.

We're trying to ensure they get an equal footing with those competitors, but also

we're trying to improve their reliability.

There's some great vehicles out there.

But as you know, when you start building hand built things like, you

know, Morgan Cars or Rolls Royce's, the initial production was very difficult

to get reliability, whereas the Chinese have been building thousands

every year for the last 10 years.

We're working through that.

We'd encourage more manufacturing.

in Australia.

Not just throwing together, you know, putting the seats and the windows

from a foreign sort of manufacturing base, but really good manufacturing.

And I'm keen.

We have an order book for 4, 000 buses.

We'd like to think a good majority of those could be vehicles made in

Australia, if not New South Wales.

That's great.

Yeah, while you're here, you told me you're going to go inspect a ferry?

Yes, we're having seven, in fact, now eight ferries built in Tasmania.

This is the first time in a long time that Sydney has had Australian built ferries.

Okay.

they've come from China and Indonesia.

The company I'm visiting today, they are going to be a fantastic.

we've got three on the water.

They sail them, although they're river based ferries, they sail from here

on a good window, weather window, all the way from here to New South Wales.

It takes, you know, almost two days.

but they're a great manufacturer.

And the eighth ferry that we now have support from the government

to procure will be all electric.

Oh, wow.

We'll be our first fully electric ferry used in the harbour, that

will make a big difference.

And that will be our trial base for converting the whole fleet over the next

20 to 25 years to zero emission ferries.

Well, Howard, this has been a fascinating conversation.

Thank you so much for taking a few minutes with us here at the conference.

I would say, Paul, I'm always delighted, you know, you do a great

job bringing cities together through your podcasts and your videos.

So thank you so much for inviting me yet again.

Thank you for listening to this first show of 2025 with our

special guest, Howard Collins.

I hope you like all of us here are Transit Unplugged, found inspiration

in his words and perspectives.

Coming up next week, we are excited to announce that acting FTA Administrator

Veronica Vanterpool joins Paul to talk about the changes and challenges transit

has faced over the past four years and what to expect in the coming years.

We hope you'll all tune in and tell your friends about this great interview.

Transit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo.

At Modaxo, we're passionate about moving the world's people, and at

Transit Unplugged, we're passionate about telling those stories.

So until next week, ride safe and ride happy.