Improve Pedestrian Safety in CBD

Pedestrian Safety around Central

What are we doing?

We are taking action to improve pedestrian safety in the Central Station Precinct.

What does that mean?

A Greater Sydney Pedestrian Safety working group (made up of representatives across all of our transport modes and services) has been established to work with key stakeholders to improve pedestrian safety in the busy Central Station precinct.

Why are we doing this?

Pedestrian safety is an increasing concern across all transport modes, roads and services as our customers go about their busy lives.

Central Station was chosen as a priority location, as the precinct is a hub which connects us to all our modes of transport and services.

Significant changes are also occurring across the precinct right now. The CBD and South East Light Rail commenced in December adding a new dynamic to the area. This means thousands of new customer habits are forming on top of a busy precinct with customers navigating roads and between buses, trams and trains. At the same time, longer-term changes including the Sydney Metro interchange and redevelopment of the Central Station Precinct are also underway.

The group thought that this area deserved focused attention, specifically on safety.

Symbol of Change story

In the past

The way Transport for NSW’s operating agencies and branches were structured in the past meant we were not set up to think outside our individual modes and services or about customers’ end-to-end journeys.

This meant our customers’ experiences were inconsistent and we weren’t working together as effectively as we could to address multi-modal issues or to share key lessons learned.

Then something happened

Future Transport 2056 outlined how the Transport sector is changing and highlighted a real focus on the entire customer journey from door to destination.

As we aligned our operating model to deliver on this long-term plan, the stand-up of Greater Sydney brought together teams across all of our modes and services – Services, State Transit, Sydney Trains, Sydney Metro, NSW Maritime, Sydney Roads and Transport Coordination.

Safety was quickly identified as a priority by the Greater Sydney Leadership Group and Pedestrian Safety was selected as a key priority issue across all of our modes, roads and services.

Not only have we come together as a team in Greater Sydney, but we have also joined up with our colleagues from across the Transport cluster to understand and form new relationships which will carry forward into other parts of our business.

So now…

By working together and sharing intel, insights and ideas across teams, we now have a complete customer and operations view of pedestrian safety so we can work to reduce incidents across all modes, roads and services.

In the lead-up to CBD and South East Light Rail going live, our busy and changing Central Station Precinct was identified as a priority area. We brought together a cross divisional project team to really focus on the issue from all angles.

An initial action plan was developed and shared with our key stakeholders including the NSW Centre for Road Safety, NSW Police, City of Sydney Council, ALTRAC Light Rail including Transdev and our bus operators to gain their feedback. We used Customer Central to support us in bringing together different teams to collaborate and identify priority actions to benefit our customers.

Tangible actions which could be implemented relatively quickly are kicking off including:

  • Trialling footpath markings to bring a heightened awareness at crossing points
  • Improving Wayfinding and lighting around Railway Square
  • Distributing education kits to large Government employers within the precinct area – including Transport for NSW, Sydney Trains, Department of Justice, Department of Customer Services – to educate the large workforce out and about within the precinct
  • Sharing insights with Central Station Precinct Project team for planning purposes, so we get better customer experiences in the future
  • Working with City of Sydney on the scoping of new pedestrian crossings and cycleways
  • Looking for ways to increase pedestrian space where possible (i.e. removing unnecessary structures with agreement from all parties internally)
  • Looking at pedestrian and bus movements.

Benefits of this symbol of change

  • The Greater Sydney Pedestrian Safety working group will help improve customer safety through collaboration and information sharing across our services and modes
  • By bringing members from every part of the Greater Sydney team and key stakeholders from other divisions together to share their intel, insights and ideas we cover all angles and get a complete customer journey and operations view of this issue
  • We all share the benefits of the insights gained from working together rather than in siloes. For example, the area of roads is highly relevant to reducing incidents around the station with large volume of pedestrian movements
  • A coordinated approach means we have a better chance of reducing the number of pedestrian incidents across our modes, roads and services
  • The Central Station Precinct Project team can incorporate our insights into its plans so we achieve better customer outcomes in the future.

Key milestones

  • September 2019: Kicked off Greater Sydney Pedestrian Safety working group, exploring issues, collection of data and research and insights from across Greater Sydney
  • October 2019: formulated a draft plan for the working group’s consideration
  • November 2019: Tested thinking with stakeholder groups through the Customer Central Team
  • December 2019: Draft plan finalised following feedback
  • January 2020: Finalise action plan and recirculate, determine funding requirements (leverage existing programs where possible) and prioritise small works.

Pedestrian Safety around Central

What are we doing?

We are taking action to improve pedestrian safety in the Central Station Precinct.

What does that mean?

A Greater Sydney Pedestrian Safety working group (made up of representatives across all of our transport modes and services) has been established to work with key stakeholders to improve pedestrian safety in the busy Central Station precinct.

Why are we doing this?

Pedestrian safety is an increasing concern across all transport modes, roads and services as our customers go about their busy lives.

Central Station was chosen as a priority location, as the precinct is a hub which connects us to all our modes of transport and services.

Significant changes are also occurring across the precinct right now. The CBD and South East Light Rail commenced in December adding a new dynamic to the area. This means thousands of new customer habits are forming on top of a busy precinct with customers navigating roads and between buses, trams and trains. At the same time, longer-term changes including the Sydney Metro interchange and redevelopment of the Central Station Precinct are also underway.

The group thought that this area deserved focused attention, specifically on safety.

Symbol of Change story

In the past

The way Transport for NSW’s operating agencies and branches were structured in the past meant we were not set up to think outside our individual modes and services or about customers’ end-to-end journeys.

This meant our customers’ experiences were inconsistent and we weren’t working together as effectively as we could to address multi-modal issues or to share key lessons learned.

Then something happened

Future Transport 2056 outlined how the Transport sector is changing and highlighted a real focus on the entire customer journey from door to destination.

As we aligned our operating model to deliver on this long-term plan, the stand-up of Greater Sydney brought together teams across all of our modes and services – Services, State Transit, Sydney Trains, Sydney Metro, NSW Maritime, Sydney Roads and Transport Coordination.

Safety was quickly identified as a priority by the Greater Sydney Leadership Group and Pedestrian Safety was selected as a key priority issue across all of our modes, roads and services.

Not only have we come together as a team in Greater Sydney, but we have also joined up with our colleagues from across the Transport cluster to understand and form new relationships which will carry forward into other parts of our business.

So now…

By working together and sharing intel, insights and ideas across teams, we now have a complete customer and operations view of pedestrian safety so we can work to reduce incidents across all modes, roads and services.

In the lead-up to CBD and South East Light Rail going live, our busy and changing Central Station Precinct was identified as a priority area. We brought together a cross divisional project team to really focus on the issue from all angles.

An initial action plan was developed and shared with our key stakeholders including the NSW Centre for Road Safety, NSW Police, City of Sydney Council, ALTRAC Light Rail including Transdev and our bus operators to gain their feedback. We used Customer Central to support us in bringing together different teams to collaborate and identify priority actions to benefit our customers.

Tangible actions which could be implemented relatively quickly are kicking off including:

  • Trialling footpath markings to bring a heightened awareness at crossing points
  • Improving Wayfinding and lighting around Railway Square
  • Distributing education kits to large Government employers within the precinct area – including Transport for NSW, Sydney Trains, Department of Justice, Department of Customer Services – to educate the large workforce out and about within the precinct
  • Sharing insights with Central Station Precinct Project team for planning purposes, so we get better customer experiences in the future
  • Working with City of Sydney on the scoping of new pedestrian crossings and cycleways
  • Looking for ways to increase pedestrian space where possible (i.e. removing unnecessary structures with agreement from all parties internally)
  • Looking at pedestrian and bus movements.

Benefits of this symbol of change

  • The Greater Sydney Pedestrian Safety working group will help improve customer safety through collaboration and information sharing across our services and modes
  • By bringing members from every part of the Greater Sydney team and key stakeholders from other divisions together to share their intel, insights and ideas we cover all angles and get a complete customer journey and operations view of this issue
  • We all share the benefits of the insights gained from working together rather than in siloes. For example, the area of roads is highly relevant to reducing incidents around the station with large volume of pedestrian movements
  • A coordinated approach means we have a better chance of reducing the number of pedestrian incidents across our modes, roads and services
  • The Central Station Precinct Project team can incorporate our insights into its plans so we achieve better customer outcomes in the future.

Key milestones

  • September 2019: Kicked off Greater Sydney Pedestrian Safety working group, exploring issues, collection of data and research and insights from across Greater Sydney
  • October 2019: formulated a draft plan for the working group’s consideration
  • November 2019: Tested thinking with stakeholder groups through the Customer Central Team
  • December 2019: Draft plan finalised following feedback
  • January 2020: Finalise action plan and recirculate, determine funding requirements (leverage existing programs where possible) and prioritise small works.
Page last updated: 24 Jan 2020, 04:38 PM