Natalie Reiter

In her own words

I only really got into transport in the last 10 years when I took on a city council role which had transport and planning responsibilities.  The work exposed me to both the engineering and planning sides and highlighted the critical interconnection between transport and land use. I believe there needs to be a symbiotic relationship between transport and planning to ensure we maximise the benefits of our existing networks and plan optimally for future requirements.

When I joined the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning in 2020, I worked much more in an in-depth manner on the combination of transport and land use.

I would never have had any awareness of this type of work when considering my career at school because as recent as even 15 years ago we weren’t doing much integrated transport and land planning; the theory has always been there but delivery has been slow.

I thought I was going to be a psychologist which is interesting because I do think you need a really strong understanding of people’s motivations and needs to develop a good plan around transport.

I don’t think it is any surprise that when we had engineers solely looking after transport we got a predict and provide model, without any aspiration for how you might be able to  do something different and drive a different policy outcome.

When you look at those cities of the world best integrating transport and land use the outcomes being achieved are brilliant, including what Paris has been doing with cycling in just the past decade. Some of the Nordic cities are measuring the benefits including health cost savings and the return on investment is through the roof. There are terrific recent examples in Europe that provide hope around what we could achieve in Australia.

I am passionate about creating visions, mapping strategic paths and being tenacious in delivery. To actually follow through and make something happen takes a huge amount of energy. It’s a bit like having a baby and raising a child - everyone focuses on having the baby which is over relatively quickly and then the hard work begins with the child raising. So many ideas, strategies and well-intended approaches don’t end up anywhere because people don’t realise just how much energy is needed to close something out.

I have an innate ability to be big picture as well as drill down into the detail and can easily flip between the two. I spend a fair bit of time asking ‘how would that play out?’ or conversely ‘where is this going?’ The ability to switch between working on the vision and then in the detail is like exercise – the more you do it, the better you are.

The multi modal movement

One of the biggest emerging trends it that people are becoming much more comfortable undertaking a multi modal journey. I would argue that is being driven by the improvement in journey planning tools which in turn give people more confidence to transition between modes. We are going to see this trend continue as we see more accurate real time data being delivered in more innovative apps and push notifications suggesting modes and routes linked to real time events.

Growth in our active transport uptake will accelerate when it is incentivised. For example if your health insurance hooked up to your phone, monitored your steps and gave you a $20 credit each time you hit 10,000 steps, behavioural change would happen. In the same way we must incentivise people not to own a car – as opposed to not using their car. Once you have bought a car, every time you don’t use it is a financial penalty to yourself. I argue that we need a big education program highlighting the cost of having a car, showcasing alternate options and making share cars readily available.

Focus on your strengths

The best advice I ever received was to trust my judgement and not second guess myself, because you will be right about 95% of the time. I received this advice mid-career and have applied it ever since; it has served me very well.

The advice I give others is to invest your time on the parts of your work and career that you are really good at. I champion taking a strengths based approach and not spending lots of your time on the aspects of work you may not be so good at. There will be other people and other ways to fill the gaps in your expertise and experience. I am not suggesting being a narrow specialist. I am just saying people often spend all this time rounding themselves out when they may have been better to say: ‘what is my unique selling proposition? Let me ensure that is red hot and I leverage it for the benefit of the greater good.’