Driving Transit Innovations – 5 Global Transit Leaders Share Their Visions of the Future

Paul Comfort: 00:00:05

I'm Paul Comfort, and this is the eighth anniversary

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of our Transit Unplugged podcast.

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Welcome to the world's leading podcast that is focused on top

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public transportation executives.

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Great to have you with us.

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You know, it all started for me.

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Over 30 years ago, when I first began my career, I'd always been

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interested in communications.

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As a matter of fact, when I was in college, I worked at the

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campus radio station and was the news director, and a DJ.

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During that time, I also had a part time job at a local radio

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station near where I lived.

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And I ended up working there for 16 years.

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I was a weekend DJ, sometimes at nights as well.

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We played, uh, middle of the road music, and then I started a show called Comfort's

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Corner, which was like a local talk show.

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Sometimes it was done online where I would record an interview, but most of

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the time it was recorded at a local gas and appliance store in the downtown,

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County seat of the county where I lived, right in the front window, where I would

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invite people, whether they were a county commissioner or the adjutant general of

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the Maryland National Guard, and all kinds of officials, gubernatorial candidates

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and congressmen, and, it was fun.

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I loved it.

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I did that.

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I also worked early on in communications.

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for local newspapers where I was a columnist and also,

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wrote articles for them.

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Basically, I'd always try to integrate my love of communications

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into what I was doing day to day.

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So I was doing this part time while I was working as the transportation coordinator

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for Queen Anne's County and then on to my next jobs in the private sector.

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So much so that when I became a county administrator for two counties in

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Maryland, in both counties, I used the Cable Access Fund to Open up cable access

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channels, government channels, where you could watch public access shows.

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When I was at the MTA as CEO, we opened up America's first and only FM radio

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station operated by a transit system.

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It was, and is, WTTZ FM 93.

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5 with smooth jazz all day long.

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And then five times an hour transit and traffic updates.

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There was a guy named Mark on our staff that had a much better late

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night FM DJ voice than I did.

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he was brilliant, man.

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And then when I got here to Trapeze and now Vontas and they asked me that I want

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to start a podcast, I was like, sure.

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And they said, what do you want it to be?

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I said, I know exactly what I want it to be.

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I just left being CEO of the MTA in Baltimore, the 11th largest

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transit system in America.

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And I wanted to interview CEOs.

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I wanted to give them a chance in their own voice to talk about

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what they wanted to talk about.

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You see, cause I knew from experience that most of the time when CEOs

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get an opportunity to speak publicly or in the media, they're

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going to It's very prescribed.

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They can only say certain things because usually they're responding to

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a crisis, whether it's a bus crash or a derailment or some other type of incident.

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And they've got their, you know, PR person right there with them and

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they have to stay right on script.

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I wanted to give them a chance to talk about the things they were excited about,

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open up about, you know, their lives and careers so that other people could learn.

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possible career paths or talk about the current challenges.

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Maybe, you know, whether it's zero mission buses or autonomous vehicles

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or cybersecurity, whatever the current challenges they were doing, their big

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projects, give them a chance just to talk.

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And so that's what we did.

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And here we are now, eight years later, well into our run now with,

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You know, lots of, lots of programs under our belt currently, as we have

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been for the last eight years, pretty much put out a show every week.

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It's now on Wednesdays it comes out.

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We've had, over 320 published episodes with hundreds and

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hundreds of thousands of downloads.

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We're heard in a hundred countries with, the majority of our audience

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in North America, but strong listenership in Canada, the

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United Kingdom, and in Australia.

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where I'm headed shortly, to, for a two week trip to visit with our

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Australian partners over there and record podcasts and shows there.

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Our podcast has been recognized as a top 60 government podcast and

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was winner of the American Public Transportation Association's AdWheel

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Award for best educational effort.

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APTA's AdWheel.

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We were very proud of that a few years ago.

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And we've aired compelling interviews with, you know, nearly 400 transit

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industry executives, and we continue to do it, and of course the show has expanded.

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It first started by doing live events, live CEO roundtables at my own company's

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conferences, and then at the booths of our companies and other companies, At

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trade shows like the one we just did in APTA that you're going to hear today.

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we've also moved into television.

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after the pandemic, I felt like, you know, we wanted to travel.

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People wanted to see what was going on in the world.

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So we started our own travel show, food, fun, and culture at cities

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around the world, from Barcelona to Sacramento and, every city in between,

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we show you the food, fun, and culture, and we show you behind the scenes of

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their public transportation system, like you won't see anywhere else.

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And.

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We show you how to use that transit system to get around the city, to get to all

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those fun places I just told you about.

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And that show is going gangbusters, man.

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We've won several awards this year.

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We're now at over 2 million views on YouTube with our shows.

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I mean, people are watching them.

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They love this stuff.

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They love seeing the fun side of public transportation.

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We love bringing it to them.

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And for those of you who really want to dig in more, we've also opened up a new

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show, just a couple months ago, called, Transit Unplugged Behind the Scenes,

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Transit Unplugged TV Behind the Scenes, where you get the full interviews, you get

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to see them, which airs the week after.

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The main show drops on the second Thursday of each month.

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We've also started a News Minute, which is very popular now.

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It's, every Monday, you can get dropped in your email box or in your LinkedIn.

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A great News Minute by one of America's former top FM DJs herself,

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Julie Gates, who's on our team.

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And she brings you kind of the fun side of transit and big news that it's happening.

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That show has been picked up now by the Transportation

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Channel, as has our TV show.

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And also, even by places like MSN, we're becoming recognized as a

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authority, a source for news information regarding the transit industry.

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Our editor, Tris Hussey, also puts out a weekly newsletter, which you should get.

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If you don't get it, I encourage you to subscribe to it.

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It's free and it tells you everything going on in Transit Unplugged world.

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And of course, I've been writing books now for seven years, a book

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a year, and I'm working on the next one, with my book agent, for

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coming out next year on leadership.

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Yep.

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Even beyond the transit industry, but these books also include many of

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the guests we've had on these shows.

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That's what Transit Unplugged has become.

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It's become a whole franchise and there's lots more new things to come.

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as you may be aware, we are, we're doing, a whole new look for the show, rebranding

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for the show and for eight season because eight is the number of new beginnings.

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On to this week's episode, it is our Live CEO Roundtable recorded and

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brought to you today here on Transit Unplugged, it's our 8th anniversary show.

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It includes Andy Lord, who is the CEO of the world's

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largest transportation network.

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He is the Commissioner for Transport for London.

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Dottie Watkins, who is the CEO of CapMetro in Austin, who has the nation's

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largest capital program going on with a 7 billion program approved by the voters.

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Dwight Farrell, who heads up.

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Detroit's transit system, the Suburban Mobility Authority for regional

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transportation in the suburbs there, Sean Donahue, my friend from North

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County Transit District in San Diego, and Adam Leishman, a newer friend who's

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from Hong Kong, who talks about what it's like to run transit in probably

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the world's most transit friendly city, where over 90 percent of the people ride.

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Today, you'll also learn about the success of London's Elizabeth Line,

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their upcoming Piccadilly Line with Andy Lord You'll get Information on

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Austin's Project Connect and their unique microtransit services, Detroit Smarter

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Mobility Initiative, and the role of leadership, mentorship, and authentic

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decision making from all of our guests, from AI technology to the transformative

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impact of public transport on our cities.

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This podcast is a perfect summary of what we bring you

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every week on Transit Unplugged.

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If you don't follow us, Subscribe.

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I encourage you to do so.

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You will be, hopefully, like my friend Schneider St.

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Preux who was one of the top 40 under 40 public transit leaders in America

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this year, who was just on the show a couple episodes ago, who told me

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a year ago, and also repeated it on our podcast, Paul, I've listened to

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every one of your podcast episodes.

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Wow, huh?

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What a compliment.

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And he said, This show I credit largely with the advancement of my career.

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I went from a bus driver up the ranks to now general superintendent of the

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entire bus service for Miami Dade Transit and he said he credits what he learned

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from the guests on the show largely for his advancement in his career.

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This show is powerful.

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This show today is likewise.

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Enjoy.

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Welcome everyone to the Transit Unplugged Live CEO Roundtable here at

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the Vontas booth at APTA Transform.

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Great to have you here.

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Come on over.

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We're going to spend a few minutes talking to some of the world's

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leading public transit CEOs.

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here at the Vontas booth.

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Thank you for sponsoring us, Vontas.

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Let's kick it off with Andy Lord, the Commissioner of Transport for London.

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Andy, thank you for coming.

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You made it all the way across the pond.

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Andy has got so much going on.

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If you haven't listened to his podcast episode, Transit Unplugged, we kind of

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break it all down over half an hour.

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But tell us about one or two of the big things you've got going on there at TFL.

Andy Lord: 00:09:17

Yeah, thanks, Paul.

Andy Lord: 00:09:17

So, obviously we're now, three years after the Elizabeth Line, opened.

Andy Lord: 00:09:21

fastest growing railway in Europe.

Andy Lord: 00:09:23

Huge success.

Andy Lord: 00:09:24

So now we're working on, upgrading some of the other tube lines, so the

Andy Lord: 00:09:27

big project we're doing on the tube is the upgrade of the Piccadilly line,

Andy Lord: 00:09:30

which is the primary east west, link from Heathrow through the centre of

Andy Lord: 00:09:34

the city and out to, the north east.

Andy Lord: 00:09:37

new fleet of rolling stock, built by Siemens, first train arriving

Andy Lord: 00:09:41

in London imminently for testing.

Andy Lord: 00:09:42

It's a three, just under a three billion pound programme of work that'll increase

Andy Lord: 00:09:46

capacity on the line by about 12 to 15%.

Andy Lord: 00:09:49

new walk through, first ever air conditioned trains on the

Andy Lord: 00:09:52

Deep Tube, in London, going to service towards the end of, 2025.

Andy Lord: 00:09:57

So that's the, the major project on the Tube.

Andy Lord: 00:09:59

we also have the Docklands Light Railway, our driverless, light rail

Andy Lord: 00:10:03

system in the east of the city.

Andy Lord: 00:10:05

we have the new rolling stock for that, also under test, built by CAF in Spain.

Andy Lord: 00:10:10

Again, transformative from the customer.

Andy Lord: 00:10:12

experience perspective, but also from a capacity perspective.

Andy Lord: 00:10:15

So, two really major programs on the rail side that we're focusing on.

Andy Lord: 00:10:19

and then the other big thing that's occupying my mind, is how we

Andy Lord: 00:10:22

convince our new government in the UK, to give us some more money, so

Andy Lord: 00:10:26

that we can continue to invest and maintain the services that we do.

Andy Lord: 00:10:29

So, get a long term, sustainable capital funding deal for London.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:33

Tell us real quickly about the model there, of how you're structured.

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You're actually a department of the city government.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:39

You report to the mayor of London?

Andy Lord: 00:10:40

That's correct.

Andy Lord: 00:10:41

We're a public sector organisation, wholly owned subsidiary of

Andy Lord: 00:10:45

the Greater London Assembly.

Andy Lord: 00:10:46

we have a independent board appointed by the Mayor.

Andy Lord: 00:10:49

I'm accountable to the board and the Mayor who's chair of the board.

Andy Lord: 00:10:52

the Mayor has complete control over TFL, in terms of decision making.

Andy Lord: 00:10:57

and he actually, by legislation has the ability to set the fares himself.

Andy Lord: 00:11:02

so, so I run a nine and a half billion pound cost based, I do what I can to

Andy Lord: 00:11:07

influence his decision making on the fares, but ultimately the mayor is the

Andy Lord: 00:11:10

one who sets the fares, so we're very proud of having an affordable system.

Andy Lord: 00:11:15

we have the lowest bus fares in the UK, and, we generate the operating surplus

Andy Lord: 00:11:20

so we invest in it going forward.

Andy Lord: 00:11:22

All our meetings are fully scrutinized, held in public.

Andy Lord: 00:11:25

and, I have the pleasure of attending various public committee

Andy Lord: 00:11:28

meetings to, explain what we're doing and why we're doing it.

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I'm sure all the time.

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When we come, we're going to go down the line, but, when we come back, I'm going to

Paul Comfort: 00:11:36

ask, Andy Lord, how in the world do they get everybody to ride transit in London?

Paul Comfort: 00:11:41

Because everybody rides, and we need that here in America.

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You know, less than, on average, across America, only 5 percent of the people

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ride public transit on a regular basis.

Paul Comfort: 00:11:50

What's your number there?

Paul Comfort: 00:11:51

Do you know?

Andy Lord: 00:11:52

Well, we're 90 percent ridership compared to pre pandemic levels.

Andy Lord: 00:11:57

11 million passengers a day.

Andy Lord: 00:11:59

London has a 9 million population.

Andy Lord: 00:12:01

Not everybody is coming into the office every day.

Andy Lord: 00:12:03

So I want more people to ride.

Andy Lord: 00:12:05

But the biggest thing we did is we refused to cut services during the pandemic.

Andy Lord: 00:12:11

Which enabled us to have high frequency turn up and go services.

Andy Lord: 00:12:14

And what we have is a tube system that is designed to connect people

Andy Lord: 00:12:18

from the mainline stations and bring them to the place of work.

Andy Lord: 00:12:21

We have a bus system that is designed to operate in the outer reaches of the city.

Andy Lord: 00:12:25

it's the most affordable element, particularly for, people of low

Andy Lord: 00:12:28

income, and it's the primary means of traveling, and, and we have an ambitious

Andy Lord: 00:12:32

target of 80 percent of everybody in London, either walking, cycling,

Andy Lord: 00:12:36

or using public transport by 2041.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:39

80%.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:40

Wow.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:40

That's amazing.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:41

All right, Dottie.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:42

So, Dottie started her career as a bus operator.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:45

As a matter of fact, when I was down there with her, we were riding a bus, and we

Paul Comfort: 00:12:48

went out to Barton Springs, and when we got off the bus, she said, oh by the way,

Paul Comfort: 00:12:53

I started driving with him when I started.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:55

Quite a story, Dottie.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:57

All

Dottie Watkins: 00:12:57

right, good afternoon.

Dottie Watkins: 00:12:58

I'm Dottie Watkins, President and CEO at CapMetro in Austin, Texas, and as

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:03

Paul mentioned, we've got a lot of fun things going on down in Austin.

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:07

Most exciting is Project Connect, which is our vision for transit expansion

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:11

over the next decade or so, but next spring we'll be launching two new BRT

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:15

lines as a first step in that expansion.

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:19

We've been very blessed to get Small Starts grants for two new

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:22

lines to go through the eastern portion of our service area.

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:25

Um, and we're really excited to start that.

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:27

Along with that, we're starting a new microtransit zone.

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:29

Our microtransit service that we call PICKUP, um, has been very powerful, um,

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:34

tool in helping us serve neighborhoods and communities that are otherwise really kind

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:37

of hard to get transit connections to.

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:39

So we're really excited about that.

Paul Comfort: 00:13:41

Let me ask you a follow up to that.

Paul Comfort: 00:13:43

So in Austin, when Randy was there, you all passed the 7 billion referendum.

Paul Comfort: 00:13:49

Has politics changed?

Paul Comfort: 00:13:51

Are things changing?

Paul Comfort: 00:13:52

Are you still on course?

Paul Comfort: 00:13:53

What's happening?

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:53

We're still on course.

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:55

I wouldn't say politics have changed.

Dottie Watkins: 00:13:56

We are still in the state of Texas, which is one of Austin's unique, challenges

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:01

and opportunities because, our, we tend to be a much more progressive city

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:05

than the rest of the state around us, although all of the cities in Texas

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:09

are getting more and more progressive.

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:10

Texas is an enormous place.

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:12

we are on course.

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:14

We're actually looking in the next couple of months with our partners to

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:17

be looking at a draft environmental impact statement for our light rail

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:21

line, which is the biggest chunk of money in that 7 billion investment.

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:25

but things are moving forward.

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:27

We're really excited about how that's going.

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:29

We still have tons of local support, which is great.

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:31

I think the pandemic was the We made the difficult decision to go

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:37

for the vote during the pandemic.

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:38

We had actually been preparing for a November 2020 election long before we

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:43

thought we knew that we were going to have a global pandemic, but we knew that the

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:47

problems of our community weren't going to go away just because we were all sitting

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:51

at home for some unknown amount of time.

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:55

And so we went ahead and went for it, and that was great.

Dottie Watkins: 00:14:58

it would have been great if we'd managed to not have inflation

Dottie Watkins: 00:15:00

coming out of it and all the other problems that all of us are facing,

Dottie Watkins: 00:15:03

post pandemic, but, we're on track.

Dottie Watkins: 00:15:05

No pun intended.

Dottie Watkins: 00:15:06

That's awesome.

Paul Comfort: 00:15:07

On track, yeah.

Paul Comfort: 00:15:07

I was just in Austin last week.

Paul Comfort: 00:15:09

I'm one of your tracks.

Paul Comfort: 00:15:10

You guys still have a great service there.

Paul Comfort: 00:15:11

It's just, and it's growing.

Paul Comfort: 00:15:14

It's just gonna be phenomenal.

Paul Comfort: 00:15:15

It's really one of the most exciting agencies in the country

Paul Comfort: 00:15:18

for what's happening there.

Paul Comfort: 00:15:19

So, Dwight, tell us about when some big projects going on there in Detroit

Paul Comfort: 00:15:23

and how you're recovering the city.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:15:25

The biggest project that we have that's

Dwight Ferrell: 00:15:27

going on is Smarter Mobility.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:15:29

travel patterns were already changing, even before the pandemic.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:15:34

The pandemic just took it to a whole different level.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:15:37

one of the things that we're addressing in Metro Detroit

Dwight Ferrell: 00:15:40

is, is a lot of you know it's a manufacturing city, or at least it was.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:15:45

And so now trying to make that adjustment to serve manufacturing shifts to now more

Dwight Ferrell: 00:15:50

service jobs coming into the organization like Amazon and other places like that.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:15:55

Then we have to be able to provide more frequent service.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:15:58

The other thing is that we are also taking into consideration the silver tsunami

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:03

that's coming as it relates to more and more baby boomers who are retiring.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:06

And you've ever had the misfortune to ever have to take your parents

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:10

keys like I have, It's awful because that loss of independence.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:14

And so we're looking at smarter mobility as a way to be able to provide that kind

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:18

of service across the region that allows people to maintain their independence.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:23

And quite frankly, we have a number of people who are in

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:27

the millennial and Generation Z generation who don't want a car.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:31

And so being able to provide that service to give them those options.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:35

we've done some research in that space, and it's not that people couldn't

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:39

afford a car, they'd just rather do something else with the money for a car.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:44

So there's a lady that works, works at, in, in, at SMART with us.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:48

She and her husband could afford two cars, but she says she doesn't want

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:50

to give up her golf club membership.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:52

Okay.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:53

All right.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:53

Well, I can see that.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:54

And so that's what we are looking at in terms of the smarter

Dwight Ferrell: 00:16:58

mobility, how we can do it cheaper.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:00

How we can have the service actually fit the need, as opposed to, well, why do

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:04

you have all these empty buses out here?

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:06

And the other thing we're looking at, too, is moving away

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:09

from what I call the Southwest Airlines model to the Delta model.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:13

And by that I mean Southwest Airlines has one plane, 737.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:18

They may be different lengths, but there's just one plane.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:22

Delta has planes of different sizes, so they can go to different places.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:25

And so that's the other part about our, we're going to be diversifying our

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:29

fleet as well as, you know, making the transition to low emission, zero emission,

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:34

but also making sure that we have a fleet that better reflects the ridership.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:38

So that's gonna, that's something else that we're doing.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:40

And so that's it for right now.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:17:42

It's more than enough to say grace over.

Paul Comfort: 00:17:45

There you go.

Paul Comfort: 00:17:46

You probably can tell Dwight, has a lot of experience.

Paul Comfort: 00:17:49

He and I have worked together in this business for over 35 years.

Paul Comfort: 00:17:51

Transcribed Together in various places and, uh, uh, Detroit is well

Paul Comfort: 00:17:56

served by having someone, a seasoned leader like, like him at the helm.

Paul Comfort: 00:18:00

All right, Sean, what do you got going on there?

Paul Comfort: 00:18:01

What's the biggest thing happening?

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:02

Yeah, first of all, I want to say how amazing it is to have

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:05

multi generational, leadership here.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:08

I'm also third generation public transit.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:10

I'm contractually obligated to give a shout out to my grandfather, who's

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:13

in the APTA Hall of Fame, and my dad, who just retired as a transit

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:16

CEO about three years ago, in Ohio.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:18

So, love being up here with, you know, the multi generational aspect of transit.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:22

I think it speaks volumes of the industry.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:24

You know, we got a lot of unique things going on, and I'm, I'm

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:27

gonna, I'm gonna state the obvious.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:28

We've got a lot of capital projects happening in our world.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:31

But something that we're also dealing with is workforce development.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:34

One of the things that's really an impact, especially in Southern

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:37

California, is the cost of living.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:39

And so when we have conversations with our frontline employees, or even up

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:42

to the director, manager, director level, we, we really have to be

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:46

thoughtful about where people live.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:48

We have a great deal of our workforce that's an hour from our facilities, an

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:51

hour and a half from our facilities.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:53

and that's just for them to be able to have that livability factor, so how are

Shawn Donaghy: 00:18:56

we as an agency really trying to transform our employee experience, what we want

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:00

that to look like, making sure that our operators have the right shifts so they

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:04

can take care of their families, not working six, six and a half days a week.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:08

and then on the Capital Project side, I mean, we're, we're a huge county.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:12

Like, San Diego County, just in terms of square miles, is big enough to be

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:15

like the 48th largest state in the U.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:17

S.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:17

And that's a big deal, because MTS does an absolutely phenomenal job

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:21

of, of, the city of San Diego itself, and really a lot of East County.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:25

I know, I thought I saw Brian Riley over here, he's our Chief Operating Officer.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:28

amazing.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:29

but we sort of handle the rest, all of North County, you know, 73, 76, 78, I 5

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:35

Corridor, we've, you know, our commuter rail service took a little bit of a hit

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:38

during the pandemic because we didn't see that commuter service, down into

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:42

San Diego, but we saw, what we saw was a, almost a doubling of ridership on

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:46

the week, and so we really moved a lot of our service area, our service around

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:50

to sort of manage, midday, later in the evening, weekend service, we sort of,

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:54

much to what everybody else said, we sort of layered on top of that, really our

Shawn Donaghy: 00:19:58

NCTD Plus service, which is our, sort of microtransit, and it sort of overlays over

Shawn Donaghy: 00:20:02

our fixed route, and some of the other spaces, and I think the idea behind that

Shawn Donaghy: 00:20:05

for us was, are there opportunities, like Dwight said, to change the condition of

Shawn Donaghy: 00:20:09

the type of bus that's in that, In that scenario, and that's a big deal for us.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:20:12

We're providing the same level of service, possibly even a little better.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:20:16

our planning team is absolutely phenomenal.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:20:18

They do a great job of, really sort of imagining what North County

Shawn Donaghy: 00:20:21

could be and what it looks like.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:20:22

So just, real happy with their work and we got a lot of great stuff going on.

Paul Comfort: 00:20:26

That's great.

Paul Comfort: 00:20:26

Adam, tell us in Hong Kong, one of the interesting things you may

Paul Comfort: 00:20:30

not be aware of, but in Hong Kong, there's no real public subsidy.

Paul Comfort: 00:20:34

For the bus or the rail, they make their own money.

Paul Comfort: 00:20:37

How do you do that, man?

Adam Leishman: 00:20:39

You have a lot of people catching buses.

Paul Comfort: 00:20:41

A dollar ahead, come on!

Adam Leishman: 00:20:43

I mean, we don't have, we didn't have a

Adam Leishman: 00:20:44

subsidy for buses in Hong Kong.

Adam Leishman: 00:20:46

Traditionally, we never have.

Adam Leishman: 00:20:48

and, and 90 percent of the public use public transport for their trips.

Adam Leishman: 00:20:52

So 90 percent

Paul Comfort: 00:20:53

of trips.

Adam Leishman: 00:20:53

90%!

Adam Leishman: 00:20:54

Which is, I think it ranks number one in the world.

Adam Leishman: 00:20:55

It's quite amazing, but I think that's only possible when you

Adam Leishman: 00:20:59

have a holistic view on how to build and develop your city.

Adam Leishman: 00:21:03

And, as an Australian, I think a lot of the cities that, we have very similar to

Adam Leishman: 00:21:07

the US, where we have a thing called urban sprawl, and it makes it very difficult

Adam Leishman: 00:21:12

to run commercial, transport operations.

Adam Leishman: 00:21:15

Then I had the privilege of living in London for a few years, and it reset my

Adam Leishman: 00:21:18

thinking, and I decided not to have a car.

Adam Leishman: 00:21:21

I'm one of those people, actually, do I?

Adam Leishman: 00:21:23

I, I enjoy living in a city where I don't need to have a car, and I've

Adam Leishman: 00:21:27

done that in London and Hong Kong.

Adam Leishman: 00:21:28

I haven't had a car for, for eight years.

Adam Leishman: 00:21:31

But I think we need to rethink how we do cities.

Adam Leishman: 00:21:34

I think urban sprawl is our enemy.

Adam Leishman: 00:21:37

Cars and roads are our enemy, in a sense, if you want to use colourful language.

Adam Leishman: 00:21:42

And we need to get urban planning departments working

Adam Leishman: 00:21:45

alongside transport departments.

Adam Leishman: 00:21:48

And the transport infrastructure needs to be the backbone of the community.

Adam Leishman: 00:21:52

And then we need to build density around those stations, and that's the only way

Adam Leishman: 00:21:56

you can make public transport commercial.

Adam Leishman: 00:21:57

And I look at a model like in King's Cross, if anyone's been there in

Adam Leishman: 00:22:01

London, and, and Dwight, you were talking about, reinvigorating a city.

Adam Leishman: 00:22:05

make public transport the backbone of that.

Adam Leishman: 00:22:07

And, and you look at King's Cross in London, it was like the worst

Adam Leishman: 00:22:10

area you could go in London.

Adam Leishman: 00:22:12

If you wanted to buy drugs, you went to King's Cross.

Adam Leishman: 00:22:14

They put major stations in that go to France, Go all across the UK, and the

Adam Leishman: 00:22:19

bus stops there, you can get anywhere in London, and now it's like the

Adam Leishman: 00:22:23

hottest place to live in, in, in London.

Adam Leishman: 00:22:25

It's a fantastic case study, and I think we need to be thinking more than

Adam Leishman: 00:22:29

just you know, buses or trains, we need to think about how we make them the

Adam Leishman: 00:22:34

backbone of the community and change the perception of what public transport is.

Adam Leishman: 00:22:39

What we bring to a city is very unique.

Adam Leishman: 00:22:41

If you list me all the problems cities face in the world, where 55

Adam Leishman: 00:22:45

percent of the world's population live, public transport helps with

Adam Leishman: 00:22:49

just about every single one of those.

Adam Leishman: 00:22:51

That's right.

Adam Leishman: 00:22:52

So I think we need to get better at being advocates for taking money out

Adam Leishman: 00:22:57

let's say roads and putting it into public transport, transitioning people

Adam Leishman: 00:23:01

into public transport because actually people will choose to live that way

Adam Leishman: 00:23:06

if we give them the right opportunity.

Paul Comfort: 00:23:08

Way to go.

Paul Comfort: 00:23:09

That's great Adam.

Paul Comfort: 00:23:10

Alright Andy, what do you want to talk about next?

Paul Comfort: 00:23:11

Tell us something cool going on in London, man.

Andy Lord: 00:23:14

I'll pick up on Adam's point.

Andy Lord: 00:23:16

there's been a big debate in the UK.

Andy Lord: 00:23:18

You'll be aware of, some of you will be aware of a program called HS2,

Andy Lord: 00:23:22

which is the next high speed rail link, and the previous government

Andy Lord: 00:23:25

decided to chop off the northern section, and also say it wasn't going

Andy Lord: 00:23:30

to come into Euston in, in London.

Andy Lord: 00:23:32

And the, the problem is that everybody focused on the journey time benefit of

Andy Lord: 00:23:36

building this super fast railway and how it was going to reduce the journey

Andy Lord: 00:23:39

time between London and Birmingham.

Andy Lord: 00:23:41

Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK, you know, hugely

Andy Lord: 00:23:44

important, but it was all about how it was going to improve the journey

Andy Lord: 00:23:47

time for people from Birmingham to London, not the other way around.

Andy Lord: 00:23:50

And it wasn't talking about, most importantly, about the economic growth

Andy Lord: 00:23:54

and the wider benefits of how it would free up capacity on the existing rail

Andy Lord: 00:23:58

line, benefit towns and cities and areas there, whilst also creating

Andy Lord: 00:24:03

economic growth and regeneration.

Andy Lord: 00:24:05

So we have spent a huge amount of time in TfL over the last year, 18 months.

Andy Lord: 00:24:10

Talking to the government, talking to the supply chain, talking to

Andy Lord: 00:24:14

business stakeholders, exactly Adam's point around transport infrastructure

Andy Lord: 00:24:19

is the driver of economic growth.

Andy Lord: 00:24:22

It's the driver of jobs, it's the driver of skills and development, and

Andy Lord: 00:24:26

it's a driver for how you certainly, grow the country, economy more widely.

Andy Lord: 00:24:31

And we've been really successful at that.

Andy Lord: 00:24:32

So, for example, we had no idea before the pandemic how many

Andy Lord: 00:24:36

jobs were directly, accountable, attributable to TfL outside of London?

Andy Lord: 00:24:41

So we did, independent review.

Andy Lord: 00:24:44

We are directly responsible for over a hundred thousand jobs outside

Andy Lord: 00:24:49

London and the southeast of England.

Andy Lord: 00:24:51

So that's jobs in the north of England, in the north and east,

Andy Lord: 00:24:53

the midlands, the southwest.

Andy Lord: 00:24:55

That drives economic benefit to those areas.

Andy Lord: 00:24:58

The second thing that we focused on is we are the second

Andy Lord: 00:25:01

largest landowner in London.

Andy Lord: 00:25:02

don't After the Crown Estate, which is the Royal Family.

Andy Lord: 00:25:06

so how do we maximize that?

Andy Lord: 00:25:07

We have a lot of very old infrastructure, a lot of operational infrastructure

Andy Lord: 00:25:11

that we'd like to upgrade and replace, a lot of very old train sheds, that we

Andy Lord: 00:25:16

can rationalize and then we can reduce the land footprint and then build on it.

Andy Lord: 00:25:20

So we now have our own property company called Places for London.

Andy Lord: 00:25:23

We will be building by the end of this, decade, 20, 000 new homes on our land.

Andy Lord: 00:25:29

half of which will be affordable.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:30

All right, one more round of questions down the line here.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:33

Many of you may not know, but Andy got his start in aviation

Paul Comfort: 00:25:36

and was at British Airways for 20 years before he came into transit.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:40

Talk to us about that transition, Andy, and what did you bring from your aviation

Paul Comfort: 00:25:44

experience into public transport?

Andy Lord: 00:25:46

Well, you better ask my team that, I guess.

Andy Lord: 00:25:48

Look, there's many similarities.

Andy Lord: 00:25:50

Safety is hugely safety critical.

Andy Lord: 00:25:52

Safety is first priority for all of us.

Andy Lord: 00:25:54

huge people leadership, massive, complexity from an engineering

Andy Lord: 00:25:58

and technical perspective, and of course, customer service.

Andy Lord: 00:26:01

they're, they're the key elements.

Andy Lord: 00:26:03

from a BA perspective, I was running their global operation.

Andy Lord: 00:26:06

TfL is now a London operation.

Andy Lord: 00:26:07

So, the geography is different, but the decision making is similar.

Andy Lord: 00:26:11

The time frames are different.

Andy Lord: 00:26:12

but I think the two big things I would say that, that one I've brought in and

Andy Lord: 00:26:16

one that we need to learn from aviation.

Andy Lord: 00:26:17

One is We, we have got to be far more customer centric

Andy Lord: 00:26:21

in terms of how we operate.

Andy Lord: 00:26:23

We've got to think much more proactively around how we give customers choice,

Andy Lord: 00:26:27

particularly when there's disruption.

Andy Lord: 00:26:28

we've got to be able to communicate more proactively to our customers.

Andy Lord: 00:26:32

we kind of, have a disruption and forget about them.

Andy Lord: 00:26:35

Because they can, you know, unlike aviation, they can, they can find

Andy Lord: 00:26:38

their own way home, generally.

Andy Lord: 00:26:39

so we need to be much more putting the customer at the heart of our

Andy Lord: 00:26:42

decision making, which is something we're really focused on in, in TFL.

Andy Lord: 00:26:46

The second thing that I'm pushing really hard for is,

Andy Lord: 00:26:49

we should learn from aviation.

Andy Lord: 00:26:50

They are, you know, they, they learn from, you know, tragic events, but

Andy Lord: 00:26:55

they are incredibly proactive in terms of how they develop new technology,

Andy Lord: 00:26:59

and they are far quicker at putting it into practice and then, consistently

Andy Lord: 00:27:05

adopting it across the globe.

Andy Lord: 00:27:07

so if you look at safety in aviation, it is phenomenal.

Andy Lord: 00:27:10

and we need to be much more proactive as an industry, working

Andy Lord: 00:27:14

together, which is one of the reasons why I'm here, to see how we can

Andy Lord: 00:27:16

share and learn from each other.

Andy Lord: 00:27:18

But we all do everything slightly differently, and it adds cost,

Andy Lord: 00:27:22

it adds complexity, and it adds a hell of a lot of time and money,

Andy Lord: 00:27:26

to us actually making a difference.

Andy Lord: 00:27:27

And we need to learn from aviation and how they can do that, and

Andy Lord: 00:27:31

how we can learn from them.

Paul Comfort: 00:27:32

That's excellent.

Paul Comfort: 00:27:33

Dottie, talk to us about what new technologies you see coming in future

Paul Comfort: 00:27:37

and how are you going to utilize them?

Paul Comfort: 00:27:39

Maybe AI?

Dottie Watkins: 00:27:40

Yeah, some of the stuff that, we are kind of nibbling around the

Dottie Watkins: 00:27:43

edges at right now, really just trying to identify the use case and looking

Dottie Watkins: 00:27:47

for some grants, if anybody from the USDOT is listening, to help us do that.

Dottie Watkins: 00:27:51

one of them is using AI and just advanced camera analytics.

Dottie Watkins: 00:27:56

We have a significant number of cameras in our system.

Dottie Watkins: 00:27:59

We have cameras at many of our BRT stations.

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:02

We have cameras all over all of our buses.

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:05

we partner with this, with our local city to be able to view the

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:08

traffic cameras that we see there.

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:09

one of the use cases that, that we think would actually be very

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:12

beneficial to us, a big piece of what we operate is a commuter rail line.

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:17

so we operate commuter rail on freight rail tracks.

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:20

We actually also operate the freight rail.

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:22

but there are portions of that commuter rail line that go through ranchland.

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:25

I mean, they go from suburban communities through ranchland to the

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:28

next suburban community, then into town.

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:30

For And, in Austin, we have issues with people who are experiencing homelessness

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:35

making encampments along the right of way.

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:37

and an encampment along the right of way is dangerous for a lot of reasons.

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:40

the pedestrians on the right of way is the biggest one, but also, we continue to

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:45

have significant drought and fire risk, so when you're camping, that's also an issue.

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:49

And so, we're hoping to be able to use the cameras that are already on

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:53

our vehicles, We that are going up and down that line all day, every day, to

Dottie Watkins: 00:28:57

look at what was there the last time a vehicle came through, 30 minutes

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:00

later, what's there, 30 minutes later, what's there, and tell us when we see

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:04

the evidence of human activity and we have an encampment that we need to go

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:08

talk to the folks and help them find a different place to build their encampment.

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:12

Currently, we do that with a very labor intensive process.

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:15

We send a group of community intervention specialists, we have social workers

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:20

on staff that we will send out.

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:22

once a month on the weekend, and they'll ride the line in a high rail

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:24

with one of our rail staff, and they'll go see what they can see, right?

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:28

and that works, but it's a very labor intensive process, and we

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:32

don't always, can't always see the things, because we don't know, oh

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:35

wait, that this has been disturbed, there's actually people over here.

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:39

And so, we're hoping to be able to do more and more things, with

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:42

the many cameras that we have.

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:43

I think there's a lot, a lot that can be done to just be more efficient

Dottie Watkins: 00:29:47

and effective at what we do.

Paul Comfort: 00:29:48

That's awesome.

Paul Comfort: 00:29:49

Thank you.

Paul Comfort: 00:29:50

Dwight, I want to ask you a little different question to close up.

Paul Comfort: 00:29:53

You've been in executive management in many different jobs in many different

Paul Comfort: 00:29:56

cities, and I'd like you, in our podcast, you shared some interesting thoughts for

Paul Comfort: 00:30:02

mid level managers who want to move up.

Paul Comfort: 00:30:03

Lessons from your career.

Paul Comfort: 00:30:05

Give us one or two of the lessons for people who work in public

Paul Comfort: 00:30:09

transportation today to help them.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:11

find a good mentor.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:12

that can help you and be honest with you.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:14

And don't be afraid to fail.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:16

If you're afraid to fail, you're already screwed.

Paul Comfort: 00:30:18

You're not going to make a difference if

Paul Comfort: 00:30:19

you're afraid to fail, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:30:21

Correct.

Paul Comfort: 00:30:21

You'll be a cheerleader, not a change agent.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:23

My first promotion, I went from bus operator to assistant manager.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:26

That hasn't been done before or since then, because I was

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:29

willing to take the risk.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:31

And so you've got to be willing to get and be willing to take a risk.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:35

I mean, at the end of the day, that's what it is.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:37

And so anytime, if you ask any of these people here, the gentleman from London,

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:42

he went from aviation to transit.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:43

That's a risk.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:44

So, yeah, so I think, I think,

Paul Comfort: 00:30:47

biggest transit system in the world.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:49

Yeah, no, no risk in that at all.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:51

But I think that those are the two things, you know, and the mentor

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:55

who will tell you the truth.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:56

And I do have one more thing to add.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:30:59

Introspection.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:31:00

The one person that we lie to the most of is ourselves.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:31:03

So you really have to be honest about you with yourself.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:31:07

Because when you look at the failures that you've had in your lifetime,

Dwight Ferrell: 00:31:10

what's the one common denominator?

Dwight Ferrell: 00:31:12

You.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:31:13

Failures and you learn from them.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:31:15

Be honest about yourself.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:31:17

You know, this is my role in this.

Dwight Ferrell: 00:31:18

It's easy to point the finger and blame your boss for whatever, but what did you

Dwight Ferrell: 00:31:23

do to cause your boss to take the action?

Paul Comfort: 00:31:25

That's good.

Paul Comfort: 00:31:26

Sean, I'm gonna ask you to keep that going for just a minute if you don't mind.

Paul Comfort: 00:31:29

I think, what a lot of folks don't realize that when you move into the

Paul Comfort: 00:31:32

senior chair, all the easy decisions have already been made before they get to you.

Paul Comfort: 00:31:36

The decisions that have a template for them.

Paul Comfort: 00:31:39

A plus B equals C.

Paul Comfort: 00:31:41

The ones that come to the CEO job are the ones without a

Paul Comfort: 00:31:44

template that require judgment.

Paul Comfort: 00:31:46

Judgment that's been forged in the fires of a thousand decisions

Paul Comfort: 00:31:50

that you've made along the way.

Paul Comfort: 00:31:52

And like Dwight just said, you've integrated the lessons from them.

Paul Comfort: 00:31:55

Oh, that didn't work.

Paul Comfort: 00:31:56

I better do something different next time.

Paul Comfort: 00:31:58

Give us your thoughts on that, and as a leader, how do you handle that?

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:02

Yeah, I would say first, like Andy, I came from

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:05

aviation also, right after 9 11.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:07

and I was in a position where I was starting to see a lot of information

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:11

that came post 9 11, and I said, man, I, I gotta get out of this.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:14

Like, this is too much, and sort of worked my way into public transit at

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:17

that point, but I think, I think the one thing that we talk about a little bit

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:21

as CEOs, we talk a lot about the CEO's Council as sort of, it's one of the

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:25

most amazing jobs you could ever have.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:28

It is also one of the loneliest jobs you can ever have.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:31

Because it is your responsibility to make sure that every single person

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:35

under your care knows that you got it.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:38

Doesn't mean you're always right.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:40

It just means they gotta know that you got it.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:42

And, and sometimes, that's really taxing.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:44

Things are gonna come your way.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:45

Like, when the pandemic hit for us, I, I was with our board, our deputy CEO,

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:51

and another individual in Washington, D.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:53

C., the day they enacted the Stafford Act and closed the doors to the Capitol.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:32:58

And so we're trying to get our board out of D.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:00

C., and I remember the three of us were kind of sitting around

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:02

at Baltimore Airport, the only place we could get a flight.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:05

And we're kind of like, what the heck are we going to do?

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:07

And I just remember, at that point in time, it was like, it was up to sort

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:11

of the three of us to build a plan.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:12

And I remember my deputy CEO saying, hey, I really want to help you,

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:16

but, you know, this is your call, boss, you've got to figure this out.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:18

And, and I remember kind of never feeling more lonely in my life than

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:22

thinking I'm about to make a thousand wrong decisions over the next 30 days,

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:25

because, right, I thought 30, 60 days, hey, yeah, I was wrong right there.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:29

But I think you got to own it.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:31

You got to be authentic about what you're doing.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:33

You got to let the workforce know that who you are is who

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:36

you're going to be as a leader.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:38

When you need to be strong, you got to be strong.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:40

When you need to make the call, you got to make the call.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:42

Managing board relationships is interesting, too, because you got to make

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:46

sure that even if you don't agree with what they want, you have to find a way

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:49

to keep them involved to make sure that their thoughts and opinions are heard,

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:52

and that's sort of an interesting space that employees don't necessarily see or

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:55

have to deal with, and then communicate those expectations to your employees.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:33:59

I love being a leader.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:00

It's one of my favorite things in the world.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:02

but one of these days I'm going back to operations just so I can get back

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:05

on the street, but, yeah, I love it.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:07

But, you know, you got to make sure you got the people around

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:09

you that give you good counsel.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:11

I've been super fortunate in my career to have some of the best, senior

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:15

staff and director level employees to walk next to me anytime I needed

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:19

somebody to walk next to me, and I've always been thankful for that.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:23

and I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for those individuals, and like Dwight

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:26

said, for some of the mentors I had.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:28

there's one right over there, Bill Sprawl.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:30

you know, like, I could walk through this hall right now and talk to a hundred

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:34

people that impacted my career, if not more, and I'm so thankful for that.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:39

and I know each one of us could do the same thing.

Shawn Donaghy: 00:34:40

Yeah,

Paul Comfort: 00:34:41

And Shawn has just been named head of APTA's mid size bus

Paul Comfort: 00:34:45

council, so congratulations on that.

Paul Comfort: 00:34:47

Adam, you've operated public transportation, I think, on

Paul Comfort: 00:34:49

four continents, and, you've operated five continents.

Paul Comfort: 00:34:53

Give us some final thoughts and lessons learned along the way.

Adam Leishman: 00:34:56

I think what was just said previously is really wonderful

Adam Leishman: 00:34:59

and it does get lonely as a CEO.

Adam Leishman: 00:35:02

and you do have to take a lot of risks and your job is literally

Adam Leishman: 00:35:05

solving problems non stop.

Adam Leishman: 00:35:07

and in an industry that's quite thankless in many ways, it's like

Adam Leishman: 00:35:11

the blood system in the body.

Adam Leishman: 00:35:13

You know, like, everyone expects it to work.

Adam Leishman: 00:35:15

No one really thanks your blood system for working, but when it stops working,

Adam Leishman: 00:35:19

when there's a clot or a problem, You know, there's a major problem.

Adam Leishman: 00:35:22

And so often you're dealing with crisis management issues.

Adam Leishman: 00:35:26

you know, I guess I've been really blessed in many ways, but also inspired

Adam Leishman: 00:35:31

having experienced London, Singapore, Hong Kong, like you said before,

Adam Leishman: 00:35:35

three of arguably the top cities in the world when it comes to buses.

Adam Leishman: 00:35:39

And seeing how a public transport system can transform a city.

Adam Leishman: 00:35:43

And, you know, that really inspired me.

Adam Leishman: 00:35:46

When I said before I went to London and then the Singapore experience,

Adam Leishman: 00:35:49

it really inspired me to dedicate my life to this industry because

Adam Leishman: 00:35:53

we can make such a difference.

Adam Leishman: 00:35:55

And, all of you here are, I assume, in this industry.

Adam Leishman: 00:35:58

Thank you.

Adam Leishman: 00:35:59

Thank you for being in this industry.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:01

It is one of the most important industries in existence.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:05

The impact we can have in cities, the impact we can have In transforming

Adam Leishman: 00:36:09

lives, improving a lot of the problems we collectively face as a society.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:15

I, I don't think we say that enough.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:16

And I think we need to congratulate the people that

Adam Leishman: 00:36:19

are doing well in the industry.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:20

These guys here doing all a fantastic job and all of you.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:23

And, and I think we need to, to bring that spirit of encouragement and working

Adam Leishman: 00:36:28

together to really make a transformation.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:30

I get really sad when I hear about, you know, A major project that's collapsed

Adam Leishman: 00:36:34

like what Andy was talking about before.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:36

So much time, energy, resource gone into it.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:39

Transformational for the country.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:41

You know, and, and often we've had so many hurdles to get over and

Adam Leishman: 00:36:45

we make it so hard for ourself.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:46

We need to make it easy and a priority to invest in public transport.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:51

So that's the message I leave for you.

Adam Leishman: 00:36:53

And thank, thank you for everyone that contributes to our industry.

Paul Comfort: 00:36:56

Thank you.

Paul Comfort: 00:36:56

Let's give our panelists a round of applause.

Paul Comfort: 00:36:59

And remember, at the heart of what we do is compassion for our passengers.

Paul Comfort: 00:37:05

As all of them have said, we make a difference in their lives.

Paul Comfort: 00:37:08

When we do it right, we Things go smooth.

Paul Comfort: 00:37:10

We don't often get thanked.

Paul Comfort: 00:37:11

When we do it wrong, we can ruin their day or even their life.

Paul Comfort: 00:37:14

So let's go out there and give it our A game every day.

Paul Comfort: 00:37:17

Thank you, Modaxo and Vontas for sponsoring.

Paul Comfort: 00:37:19

Thank you, our panelists.

Tris Hussey: 00:37:27

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of transit.

Tris Hussey: 00:37:30

Unplugged.

Tris Hussey: 00:37:31

Hi, I'm Tris Hussey editor of the podcast.

Tris Hussey: 00:37:34

And I'd like to thank our guests, Andy Lord.

Tris Hussey: 00:37:36

Adam Leishman Dottie Watkins.

Tris Hussey: 00:37:39

Dwight Ferrell.

Tris Hussey: 00:37:39

And Shawn Donaghy for their time to participate on this

Tris Hussey: 00:37:43

CEO panel at APTA transform.

Tris Hussey: 00:37:46

And coming up next week, we have something really cool and

Tris Hussey: 00:37:48

interesting to share with you.

Tris Hussey: 00:37:50

Stephen Tu of LA Metro is responsible for Station Experience.

Tris Hussey: 00:37:55

And you'll learn how Stephen has been able to enhance the safety

Tris Hussey: 00:38:00

and cleanliness of the stations.

Tris Hussey: 00:38:02

And the perception of safety.

Tris Hussey: 00:38:05

So it increases.

Tris Hussey: 00:38:06

Creases ridership.

Tris Hussey: 00:38:07

It gets more people enjoying LA Metro.

Tris Hussey: 00:38:10

Transit unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo.

Tris Hussey: 00:38:13

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

Tris Hussey: 00:38:17

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

Tris Hussey: 00:38:21

So until next week ride safe and ride happy.