14 Actionable Insights Australia & New Zealand Transit Networks Need

Alongside PTAANZ, SYSTRA has developed a benchmark publication exploring the future of public transport productivity. Moving beyond calls for less red tape, we deliver 14 practical, high-return initiatives designed to extract maximum performance from existing transport assets today.

Access the Productivity Report
Network of people, process and system

What’s influencing Productivity

Understanding a networked service where people, process and system must align

Checklist with ticks

What is and isn’t working

Assess four trends improving outcomes but also impeding productivity

Target with an arrow

Target opportunities

Where investment is most likely to deliver lasting returns for passengers

The Challenge

As Australia and New Zealand navigate tight fiscal environments, rising urban populations, and labor constraints, defaulting to multi-billion-dollar builds is no longer the sole solution to network demand. Real productivity requires maximising the value, capacity, and performance of existing assets.

$21 Billion

lost every year across Australia and New Zealand to infrastructure project delays and cancellations.

Infrastructure Australia

$242B+

national infrastructure pipeline colliding with tighter budgets and a 300,000-person labour shortfall.

Infrastructure Australia, 2025 Market Capacity Report

90%

of infrastructure megaprojects experience cost overruns, averaging 20%+ schedule extensions.

Flyvbjerg; McKinsey & Company

Lauren Streifer, Chief Executive, PTAANZ

Cities and regions need public transport to keep their communities connected. Improving the productivity of those networks is a key consideration for all. Not just to ‘do more with less’ with our existing assets, but to become more efficient in making communities better connected, and better places to be.

Lauren Streifer, Chief Executive, PTAANZ

Productivity is becoming an increasingly important focus, and rightly so. In a complex environment with competing demands for resources, we all share a responsibility to make the best possible use of what we have. When done well, even the slightest uplift in productivity can improve the daily lives of communities.

Chris Hurst, Executive General Manager, Growth & Development, SYSTRA
Chris Hurst, SYSTRA

Where the high-return opportunities exist

To improve productivity, Australia and New Zealand must get more from existing networks. Doing so requires government and industry to collaborate around one principle: every dollar invested should deliver the greatest possible benefit for passengers, communities, and the broader transport network.

Our framework focuses on three core pillars:

Train with motion lines

Move People Safer and More Frequently

Driving people-powered change, eliminating journey friction, and elevating the frontline user experience.

Programme checklist

Deliver projects more efficiently

Embedding constructability, pipeline certainty, and repeatable frameworks into early planning and design.

Performance gauge

Operate infrastructure more effectively

Standardising data and digitising core assets to achieve peak-performing transit infrastructure.

Brisbane Metro on the Victoria Bridge

Can the Biggest Productivity Gains Come from Low-Cost Initiatives?

Beyond the headlines.

Our research revealed that public transport productivity is as much a behavioral and human challenge as an infrastructure one.

Safety, trust, comfort, and accessibility are consistent factors undermining network patronage. Properly addressed, they represent low-cost, high-return opportunities to drive immediate, system-wide improvement.

Download to Explore All 14 Initiatives

Benchmark projects providing productive returns

  • projects

Grand Paris Express (Lines 15, 16, 17 and 18)

Read more sur Grand Paris Express (Lines 15, 16, 17 and 18)

Adding 200 km of automated metro and 68 stations to cut regional travel times by up to 75% while integrating seamlessly into existing transit networks.

Sydney Metro Northwest
  • projects

Sydney Metro Northwest

Learn more about Sydney Metro Northwest

Embedding early constructability and buildability into 36 km of driverless rail to deliver Australia’s benchmark metro on time and within budget.

Sydney Trains – Digital Train Radio System
  • projects

Sydney Trains – DTRS

Learn more about Sydney Trains DTRS

Modernising legacy train radio systems to next-generation wireless standards, boosting real-time throughput, safety, and network reliability.

Productivity begins with people

Productive transport isn’t just about big builds—it’s about connecting passengers with seamless journeys, equipping frontline teams with adequate resources, and deploying technology that works.

SYSTRA connects people, processes, and systems throughout the project lifecycle. We provide end-to-end engineering and advisory services to design, deliver, and integrate solutions that create transport networks communities trust and rely on.

SYSTRA colleagues working together in the Melbourne office
  • services

Systems Integration

Read more sur Systems Integration

Early alignment of technologies, processes and operations teams

  • services

Constructability

Read more sur Constructability

Practical buildability & staging to protect schedule and budget

Sydney light rail at Circular Quay
  • services

Network Optimisation

Read more about Network Optimisation

Data-driven capacity unlocks for existing networks

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Access the Productivity Report

Boosting the Productivity of Public Transport — the report
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