The future straight to your door

In an exciting first for NSW, we’re embarking on a trial of on demand transport across several locations including Sydney and the Central Coast to provide new ways for customers to reach their destinations quickly, safely, easily and efficiently, at a time that suits them.

Rolling out from October, the trial will allow customers to book services to pick them up from home or a convenient nearby location like a bus stop using an app, website or phone. They will receive a booking confirmation and an estimated pick up and drop off time at their chosen transport hub or destination. No timetables required! And the fares will be comparable to the cost of a one-way Opal trip.

The first tranche of pilots are planned for Macquarie Park, Bankstown, Northern Beaches, Edmondson Park, Sutherland Shire, Manly and the Eastern Suburbs and the Central Coast and there are more to come.

The trial is an outcome of the Future Transport Technology Roadmap, helping us to deliver on one of Roadmap’s five technology-enabled strategies - to foster shared, demand-responsive services.

The Service Delivery & Asset Management team, led by Executive Director, John Karaboulis, within Infrastructure and Services Division is behind it all.

They knew they needed to take an agile, collaborative and innovative approach to get the project off the ground.

They've been busy collaborating extensively over the past 12 months, with Customer Services, Sydney Metro, Freight Strategy and Planning and Finance and Investment and with industry groups to get the trial off the ground.

Emma Reedy, Manager, Operational Delivery and the lead on the project, said the team developed a unique procurement strategy to achieve the outcomes in a fast and efficient way and collaborated with industry to generate a number of innovative ideas to implement and test.

“We wanted to reduce the red tape, demonstrate that we were up for taking risks and make it easier for the respondents to develop quality, innovative proposals,” she said.

Giovanna Simonetti, Project Manager, said the project has been an interesting, and fast-paced one to work on due to the innovative process.

“In February we had “Innovative Sessions” that allowed proponents to explain their ideas to a panel called the “Ideas Incubators” with representatives from different areas of Transport. We also held an event that allowed industry to network and potentially create consortiums,” she said.

Jenny Birch, Director, Metro Service Delivery & Performance who has been part of the On Demand team since May 2017 says “It will be exciting to see how On Demand services can revolutionise public transport”.

The results of these pilots will set the scene for the way that we deliver services in the future – we'll keep you posted on the progress of this exciting project!

More information

For more information on this project visit the Transport for NSW website.