Public transportation leaders are looking for ways to innovate.

And to improve how they procure products.

And that's exactly what we talk about today with Rikesh Shah.

I'm Paul Comfort, and this is Transit Unplugged.

And Rikesh Shah was the Chief Innovation Officer at the world's

largest public transportation network, which is Transport for London.

That's when I first met him many years ago.

And now he's a consultant and a lecturer at major universities and does some work

with governments over in Europe and in the UK and I invited him on to continue

the big conversation that we started last week, where we talked about what

is public transportation's focus, what should it be here in the US in particular,

when less than 5% of the people ride public transit, but 84% of most

people in communities see value in it.

When Mark Aesch and Alvin McBurrough also talked about the role of

artificial intelligence and improving public transportation.

And on this one we continue kind of a big high idea.

As we talk about innovation, we talk about the role of technology in improving public

transportation, and in particular in the latter half, we talk in detail about an

area that Rikesh has much experience in, which is how to improve the procurement

process from a macro perspective, if you're an executive in an agency.

I think you'll find this kind of a great, almost like a give and take lecture

with one of the top minds in innovation, in public transportation in cities.

My good friend Rikesh Shah from London.

Great to have you with us today on the podcast.

Once again, Rikesh, one of our few, two-time guests, man.

It's wonderful to be here, Paul.

It's a delight to be here again, and thank

you for having me.

As I said in the opening of the show, Rikesh is one of these, globe

trotting innovation experts that public transportation agencies

and other groups around the world look to, to help them improve

operations and efficiencies and data.

Rikesh, tell us all about your background and how you got

to where you're at right now.

Yeah, Paul, I think first it just started on the dinner table many years back.

My father worked for Transport for London or what was London

Underground in those days.

And he served the city for 38 years on the operational side, on the Metro, the Tube.

And, you know, every day we'd have conversations about his day.

And how, you know, he was responsible for the station, how he really cared

about the local community and he really cared about everyone's experiences.

And that really started to get into my DNA.

And then I remember at university I studied economics and public policy

and I remember one of the modules on, on transport around, road congestion

and infrastructure programs.

And I really enjoyed writing that essay.

And then I was also at the same time, very fascinated about cities and I was

fascinated about new organizations.

And that took me to about 2001 where I joined Transport for London.

It was a completely new entity under the first mayor of London at the time was Ken

Livingston, Mayor Livingston, and at that time we had a few hundred people when

I joined TFL, it's about 300 people and now it's a 30,000 person organization.

Oh.

Oh wow.

Oh man.

The growth was incredible.

Yeah, and at TFL, I worked on a wide range of programs from, in the

customer directorate about delivering customer value, in the marketing

team, in the planning team, but also in the communications teams.

And then more recently, I was in the data and digital team where I set the

open innovation function, but also been involved with things like open data.

So it's been an incredible experience, a great learning ground.

One of the best periods of my life.

And then more recently I've, now I'm doing three things.

I think rather than work with one organization, I'm working with

three different entities now.

So one is I work on a government funded program on how do you use

procurement to drive more innovation in the public sector beyond transport.

, I also do some lecturing.

. And that's fascinating.

And, the third area is I also have my own consultancy business where I'm

advising both cities but also industry players from startups, scale ups, and

corporates on how do we create better value through public private partnerships.

You know, we just had on the podcast a few weeks ago, a friend of mine,

Mark Aesch, who talks about the troubles with transit in America.

Basically, you know, the average place in America outside of New

York City, less than 5% of people ride public transportation.

But 84% of the people see value in it.

So his argument is we shouldn't focus so much on getting from 4% to 4.1%.

We should focus on ensuring that what the 84% see value in, that we meet

that, we show them, we're doing that.

So they value, you know, helping people get to jobs.

That's what they value.

They value the fact that we're providing mobility to the elderly

and people with disabilities.

And they also value that we're helping people of lower income

families get to jobs and healthcare.

Those are things they see value of in public transportation.

You're like the king of big data, Rikesh.

So talk to us about, you know, how is transport changing?

How can we better meet the needs of the community and tell that story to the 84%

using technology and big data, et cetera?

I think mobility is in such an exciting period when it comes to new technologies

that if I go back to when my career started, just my job, you know, the

fax machine or a CD or even just memos was the way we worked with each other.

Even email was quite new when I started.

And you know, if we think about operations, how that's changed.

You know, we're very petrol-centric in the past.

We're now talking about electrification, we're about sustainability.

But I think the area around customer and technology is at an incredible,

interesting, and an opportunistic period.

And I think the word customer is critical, not passenger.

And I think when we start getting think about who we're serving,

we are there serving the citizen.

We're not simply there for performance targets and just simply

saying, the buses arrived on time.

If that bus arrives on time, is it right from the customer's perspective?

Is it when the customer needs it?

And also customers don't just think about the car.

They're very multimodal.

So they use all forms of transport.

, They all have different personas.

In the morning, I might be a car driver.

In the afternoon, I might be a cyclist.

In the evening, I might be picking up my kids and might go back to the car.

So again, there's very different personas.

Your journey in central London is very different to your journey in

suburban London, or even if you're in the outskirts, where I am,

I'm just on the border of London.

And I think the city's changed, and I think customer's

expectations have changed.

So the city's changed because now it's a 24/7 city.

You know, whether it's movement of freight, movement of people, the city's

always on, particularly London, and I think expectations are now much higher

because if you think about an average customer's experience, they might be

ordering their Amazon in the morning, or they might be using McDonald's in

the afternoon or something else, and suddenly they have a good customer

experience, arguably, and then when they come to transport, they just

sometimes say, why isn't it just as good?

So, I think expectations are higher.

And you touched on it in your question.

You know, the opportunities we have with new technology, whether it's big data,

whether it's cloud, whether it's the role of AI and machine learning, the rate

of technological change is incredible.

And I think what we need to get much better at is get getting better at

what outcomes do we want for our city?

How do we better understand our customer?

How do we better understand the offering that we want to

provide and when we provide it?

And ultimately, I think what we want to do is use data, use new technologies

to embrace more value, and that's about doing things better, doing

them cheaper, doing them quicker.

And one example in London is, you know, we release all of our data in

the city, and by releasing that data around where your bus is, where your

tube is, and this was done a decade ago.

It allowed the customer to engage with the organization and the city

through their channel of choice.

So if you wanted to use City Mapper or Apple Maps or Google Maps, you can

work with them and engage with them.

But what we care about is ultimately is it driving a behavior change where you

are using public transport or sustainable forms of travel, which then supports

the agenda around reducing congestion, improving people's health, economic

benefits, getting people to jobs, creating better places, better communities.

And a lot of that was because people were getting the right

information at the right time.

They were able to make better informed decisions and by making those

informed decisions, they were then using public transport more and more.

So I think that's just one example of the use of data, but there are

so many others, and I'm sure during this discussion others will come up.

. You mentioned the congestion in London, and that's a hot topic here in America.

The congestion charge, because we just had our first city

start that earlier this year.

New York City.

Tell us about some of the experience you had there in London running congestion,

charging, and now the low emission zones.

Yeah, so if we go back all the way to, 2000, let's say we're talking 20

years ago, we were, we had the first, the world's first congestion charging

zone, and immediately we saw an impact.

But that was a bold policy decision for Mayor Livingston at the time

because people were quite used to just driving into London,

parking and then coming back home.

So in parallel there was a massive investment in buses in the tube

network upgrading the tube network and encouraging better places.

So people thought there was an alternative there.

And then what the idea is that once you've got the alternative there, you

want to disincentivize the usage of car.

And what we saw very quickly is there was a reduction in car usage

in Central London, which had a direct impact, not just on congestion,

but also better air quality.

Then what we've seen more recently is the ultra low emission zone

that's been created in London, and it was controversial at the time.

Some people, particularly in the suburbs that weren't so keen on it.

But what we've seen again is as a result of the ultra low emission

zone, we're seeing reduced congestion.

We're seeing cleaner cars operating in our cities.

But again, with the Elizabeth Line, with the Super Loop Bus service and, other

forms of alternatives, people are shifting to new forms of behavior, and in this

case, sustainable forms of transport.

And I think we're seeing the same in other regions too, where in downtown

or in central parts of town, you know, ideally you wanna make it walking

friendly, cycling friendly, and more public transport friendly, which

allows the economy to thrive and allows people to have a better experience

of their city and enjoy it much more.

Yeah, there's a fight here in the US over it, the federal administration

is against them doing it, and they've had a court block that, and

New York wants to keep doing it.

They've, we just did a show on this few weeks ago.

It's reduced, I think, traffic around 15 to 20% in the downtown

area during peak periods.

And they've collected hundreds of millions of dollars.

They're putting it toward the capital cost here.

But you're right, TFL was the leader and now what is in Singapore

and a few other cities as well.

Speaking of London, for those who are listening, if you wanna know more

about, Elizabeth Line and the Super Loop that Rikesh was talking about,

we recently had Andy Lord on, the Commissioner of Transport for London.

He kind of described all those in detail.

Rikesh, you and I have a friend, joint friend in Andy Byford.

I guess you gotta be named Andy to be the head of transit in London lately.

But, now he came over here to the US and worked for Amtrak for a

while, and now he's been assigned a job with Amtrak to help them.

I just went through Penn Station in New York yesterday, 'cause I was coming

down on Amtrak through Connecticut, and he's gonna revamp that for us.

You just saw him recently, right?

Yeah.

We met in New York not so long ago.

And Andy, I've really enjoyed working for Andy and I think what Andy gave

was he really cared about innovation.

Sometimes people, when it comes to innovation, think it's a bit shiny.

It's a bit of a widget.

Andy really got it.

You know, he got the policy angle about new ideas, new thinking.

He got the technology angle, the process angle.

And I'd always remember if I bump into him in the lift or if I'm walking down

the corridor, he'd always say to me, how are you solving some of my problems?

That's good.

I love that.

So you would never, ever say, what technology are you bringing in?

And, I'm really delighted for Penn Station.

I think he'll do a fantastic job, and I think a lot of this is around leadership.

You know, what we need in transit is we need leaders that are willing

to take some risk, that are willing to think about art of the possible.

Because if we carry on work the same old way that we have been, the reality

is we don't have enough budgets.

We'll overprescribe solutions to the market, or we'll end up building ourselves

and it'll only get us so far in terms of the North Star and our strategic goals.

So we've got to be more innovative, more creative, and also more entrepreneurial.

And without a shadow of a doubt, I really enjoyed doing that with

Andy had many others at TFL.

. You know, we talk about policy change and where we need to head.

We're talking big picture items you and I are today.

You know, there's a famous book here in America and around the world

called, by Stephen Covey, called Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

And one of the seven habits is begin with the end in mind.

And for me, the end of public transportation has always

been the passenger, the rider.

And a lot of times we don't make policy decisions.

I've been an elected official, a county executive administrator and a CEO of

transit systems, and I see how policy decisions are made and there's a lot

of tug and pull and anecdotes that are told, stories that move policy makers.

How do we go back to where it should be?

Where I think you and I share this opinion, putting the citizen at

the center of our decision making.

It's a great question, Paul.

I think we've just got to meet them.

We've got to go out there, really understand the pain points,

understand the communities.

I mean, in London we've got so many diverse cultures, so much spectrum of

wealth, lots of diversity of thought.

And that means that we can't just assume we know the answers about every region.

So London has 32 or 33 municipalities.

We can't just say, Redbridge wants X and Brent wants Y, et cetera, et cetera.

Really got to go out there and engage with the local citizen and

understand the different pain points.

And I think we can't just rely on customer research because sometimes

we're making decisions based on, we've asked, you know, X people based

on a question that we've designed, and we will say, what do you want?

And.

And then they'll give you an answer and we'll say, this is what they want.

The reality is we need to go out there, get some real qualitative

research, and we talk about design thinking, start shaping those personas.

Now, people have different views on transport, depending on the context.

That same person.

Go and ask them what's working, what's not working.

Remove that bias and be also prepared to experiment.

Part of that is try something, see what's working, see what's

not working, how do you pivot?

How can you be more agile?

And I also think there's a big role around being transparent.

Yeah.

It's about what's worked, what hasn't worked, why hasn't it worked?

What are you doing next?

And I think sometimes there is a risk not in cities across the world,

that we've got a bunch of people that make really important decisions.

But they're not really getting out there and really engaging with the

local community because it's hard, 'cause as soon as you get different

views and different perspectives, it's harder for you to deliver.

But what I always believe is, you know, if the customer wants reliability, they want

safety, they want security, that's great.

Let's give them that.

Then they want to make sure they're getting value for money.

And also they'll probably want some innovation and progression.

But how do you make sure you contextually get that right?

By asking people, by asking families, and really talk to the local politicians,

'cause the beauty of most of our cities is you have local politicians,

you have citywide politicians.

How do we make sure that engagement's working really well, and you're

bringing those community voices in things that you design.

Otherwise, the risk is a vast majority will succeed, but there'll

be many that are left behind.

And how do you ensure it's not leading to inequality?

And you're creating different tiers of communities at a local level.

And the only way you can get that right is by going there and really

doing that engagement upfront.

And I think this tool around design thinking and really asking the questions

of why, you know, what is the issue, what's the problem that we're trying to

solve, and then come up with solutions is absolutely the right way forward.

That's great.

We're talking with Rikesh Shaw, one of the world's leading innovators when it

comes to public transportation and beyond.

Former Chief Innovation Officer for the world's largest public transportation

network at Transport for London.

And that's where you're calling in from today, right Rikesh?

I'm just in sunny London.

It's 32 degrees, so really enjoying it.

That's good.

Sunny for a break, huh?

And you're lately you've been teaching at universities and

lecturing some too, right?

Yeah, I've really enjoyed that.

So I'm lecturing at a series of institutes, both in the UK and

US, and a lot of it is around smart cities, transport innovation

and agile ways of working.

Well, let's dive right into that then.

Give us a free lecture.

We don't have to pay 5,000 to hear you at Harvard today.

You're gonna give us, tell us some about that.

Just go wherever you want to with it.

You know, how can we provide market innovation in public transportation?

How should cities adopt this to make their cities more mobile and agile, et cetera?

Yeah, I think a lot of this is around, the whole supply chain has changed.

And, you know, whether it's a startup or a scale up or a large corporate

or an academic spin out, we've got a diverse range of suppliers out

there broadly because the barriers to entries have come right down.

And the advances in technology have meant that they can create

products much more readily.

And that means that when we're stuck, we're trying to solve some of our

problems around congestion, air quality, greater usage of public transport.

And the list just goes on and on.

How can we be more vulnerable and share our problems with the market

and say to the market, how can we co-develop solutions with you?

Because if we think about how it's currently done is currently, if

there's a particular problem that you're solving, the city's quite

worried about sharing that publicly.

So the first thing that we'll do is say, let's put a big team

together to solve this problem.

Then if they can't solve that problem, they'll go to the market and they'll

prescribe quite often to the big tier ones to say, this is what we would like.

And there's nothing wrong with the tier ones.

They're do a great job.

But what I would love cities to do is to say, we're stuck on this problem.

Can we go to the whole market and say to people, what types of ideas have you got?

Because we are genuinely stuck on this particular problem.

And then how do you shape the market?

Because in the UK we spend 400 billion pounds a year on public procurement.

In the EU zone, it's about 2 trillion.

And if we go across the globe, 14% of GDP is spent on public procurement, and

we're not shaping the market well enough.

We're not giving the right signals.

And I remember at TFL when I asked the market, how can we get better?

They said, you paid us on time.

We trust you.

You give us regular work.

Where you fail is you're not being open enough with your innovation challenges.

And what I would love your listeners to think about is what problems have

you got and how can you frame them to the market in a new way where you are

genuinely co-creating that solution?

And most of them won't work.

I'll say that upfront, but how do you learn from it?

Move on.

But the ones that do work, I assure you, the payback will be significant.

You know, one of the things that I admire about LA Metro Los Angeles is they have an

open innovation opportunity where you can submit ideas from the private sector and

their office of extraordinary innovation, will review it, and it's an opportunity

for the market to speak to needs that have not yet been crystallized by the agency.

Let's dive in just a little bit more in that area of procurement,

Rikesh, that's an area where you've had done some, a lot of work.

What are some specific ways that you've seen transit agencies

improve their procurement efforts?

Yep.

And, and quite often I think the procurement folk actually, there's always

a route to market and the procurement folks sometimes, they're brilliant

people, but they worry too much about getting challenged or getting sued.

For me, that's a given.

You know, you shouldn't be getting challenged, you should be getting sued if

you're, if you're being open, you're being transparent, you're being consistent,

reduces the chances of challenge.

But I think what we need to do much better is firstly, I think with our procurement

colleagues, engage as early as possible.

Engage as early as possible, say these are some of the challenges that I have.

And then I think go out to the market, look far and wide

through horizon scanning.

You know, if your boss says, I need a gen AI strategy, well

that's great, but what's it for?

So you've gotta understand what Gen AI means and then understand how it aligns

to the problems that you have, similarly with any forms of new technology.

So I think the first thing is understand from the market what

is hype versus what is reality.

Don't worry about the technology, worry about your problem and

see if the technology can help.

I think the second thing is then once you start defining your problem,

say to the market, you are, you've sent a signal to say, we are ready

to procure some things downstream.

But at the moment, with all this new technologies, we are not

quite sure what role it can play.

So we want to de-risk it by working with you to experiment and see

what works, what doesn't work.

Then the third element is make sure you create a very robust procurement strategy

that allows you to do the engagement, the R&D, the experimentation, but also

the scaling through one procedure.

If you start breaking it up, it's not fair on the company that

started with you, who then have to leave and someone else comes in.

And finally, you've got to make sure internally you are all aligned because

you and I know when we're trying to procure something in an organization,

in a transit environment, we're not the only decision maker you might have to

talk to your tech team, your HR team, your sponsorship team, the service owner.

So it's a federated purchase in terms of bringing the innovation in.

So how do you make sure all of that's aligned internally and you all take

your badges off and say, this is a naughty problem that we need to solve.

Are we all up for it?

And if we're not, why don't we say no at the beginning and focus on something else?

So I think we need to create this culture.

How can you be more entrepreneurial?

As a result, how do you make it exciting for the market to work with you?

Otherwise, frankly, you won't be addressing some of those challenges

that you have and getting best value.

We have a lot of CEOs listen to our show.

I just got a message yesterday from a friend of mine who got a new CEO job

in a major city here in the US and he told me, Paul, I listen to your podcast

a lot and I hear what CEOs have to say, and it's helped inform what I'm doing.

Talk to the CEO or the top executive now.

From your perspective, what are some of the barriers to transit

agencies who are not applying agile and innovative ways of thinking?

How can a CEO or a senior vice president of an agency break out of that mold

and be willing to take some, you know, calculated risks to improve things.

I think for innovation to work, it's about leadership.

You know, if we think about how much we spend on public procurement,

it's probably about 65 to 70% in an average organization, and that means

that leadership needs to be not just how many tenders are we putting out?

It's around what tenders are coming up in the next 3, 4, 5 years.

So really get your head above the parapet and say, where are the opportunities

that we can actually do things cheaper, can do them better, do them quicker?

And if I procure something now, how do I make sure it's fit

for purpose in 7, 8, 10 years?

So how do you create a more modular way of working?

So I think my message to the CEOs is that leadership around asking those challenging

questions of where is the market going?

Where is the new technology going?

What does good look like in 5, 7, 10 years?

And how do we make sure we're making the right decisions now?

Now, because it's not just about make or buy, you know, quite

often that's leadership level.

We say, should we buy this or should we make this.

Actually spend more time on understanding that problem that I

mentioned earlier, and then go to the market and do your due diligence about

what is safe to buy off the shelf, but perhaps what else is out there

that could be worth taking a punt on.

Because it could create lots of value downstream.

And then how do you work with the market in a much more entrepreneurial manner?

Say, what does good value look like for me?

What does mutual value look like?

How do I turn my city into a test bed?

So I send that signal to the market, and the market then says, I'll invest in you.

And then how do I sell that same product to other cities across the world?

And I just don't think we're doing that.

I think at the moment we're just plugging and buying stuff that's already there

that's been there for many years.

And I don't think we're challenging the market hard enough to bring new ideas in.

Rikesh, give us your final thoughts about where we're going and how do we get there?

We've got so many challenges in the cities right now, so I think it's

fundamental to think about what does good look like in our cities.

How do we continuously work with the wider ecosystem to

co-develop the right solutions?

But it's also not about the now, it's also about the future, which is what

does our city look like in 5, 10, 15 years and how do we make our cities

better and how do we support their growth agenda and ultimately make cities more

livable and make them enjoyable for our citizens now and our next generation.

That's wonderful.

Well, it's great kind of idea, ideating with you as they say today.

Talking to big topics.

So many times on our show we're into the very granular of running a

transit system, so every now and then it's good to pull back the lens and

see it from the bigger perspective.

And you're one of the, one of the best people I know to help us do that.

Hey, if people wanna get ahold of you and maybe, you know, poke you or your

brain for a few more bits of information, how can they get ahold of you?

Yeah, thanks Paul.

So I think coming through LinkedIn would be great, it's Rikesh Shah.

And just look me up.

Yeah, I think that'd be the best way.

Or by you.

They can drop you a note I'm sure you can connect

And I'll forward it to you.

Yeah, that's right.

Well, thanks again for being our guest today from across the pond, as they say.

And, I can't wait to see you at some upcoming conference where

you're giving a great talk.

Thank you, Paul.

It's been a delight to be on.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to Transit Unplugged.

I'm executive producer Julie Gates, and this episode was created by host

and producer Paul Comfort, producer Chris O'Keefe, associate producer Cyndi

Raskin, and podcast intern Des Gates.

Transit Unplugged is being brought to you by Modaxo, passionate

about moving the world's people.

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