Rita Excell

In her own words

After graduating in the early 90’s as a civil engineer, I was fortunate to start my career in local government which is an amazing proving ground and gave me exposure to a whole range of different civil disciplines. I started off in storm water management dealing with flood affected communities and then through amalgamation had the opportunity to move into transport and traffic, advising on a number of major main street upgrades. From that experience I realised that transport ticks all the boxes for me; I got to develop engineering designs and solutions to complex technical issues and at the same time interact with the community and engage with stakeholders across all levels of government and industry.

I started my work in road safety when I joined the Royal Automobile Association of South Australia and became affiliated with the global and national motoring clubs and had the opportunity to be involved at the forefront of some major transformational initiatives. At this point of time, road safety hadn’t been recognised as a formal discipline and in the mid to late 1990s there was a lack of acceptance that you could proactively reduce human error to increase safety. Vision Zero was in its very early stages and I was involved in introducing the Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP) applying a star rating of roads for safety through a collective of the motoring clubs.

Throughout my career I have worked in early stages of the adoption of new, transformational thinking – including AusRAP - and I have learnt to be misunderstood for a long time, standing by evidence-based decision making and accepting the fact that not everyone is going to understand what you are talking about for a long time but if the proof is there, it is something worth pursuing! I have probably spent the last 30 years in transport strategy and witnessing things evolve, change, and eventually become common and well accepted. It gives me great hope around some really important initiatives currently on the cusp of being implemented over the next 10 years in transport.

I brought my road safety expertise into my work in automated vehicles and was excited to be involved in the first ever demonstration of driverless vehicle technology in the southern hemisphere in Adelaide in 2015. It was a pivotal moment - raising community awareness and providing a catalyst to some great pilot projects and investment by Australian and New Zealand governments into driverless technology. It helped grow understanding that automated vehicles provided significant safety, environmental and community benefits.

As Head of Transport at AWS ANZ, I bring the knowledge I have accumulated throughout my transport industry into the technology sector. Data is the glue that brings it all together, but there is so much data, and it is important to understand what data matters, and how you can derive insights that provide safer and more sustainable transport solution for users.  It’s extremely exciting times in relation to transport data, specifically around exchanging data to support Co-operative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS).

The concept of C-ITS and the philosophy of vehicles talking to infrastructure to create a more efficient and safer environment for all road users has been around for a long time. What has changed is the maturity of the vehicles, the maturity of the roadside technology and the maturity of the cloud, enabling us to connect data together to solve some critical national issues in Australia in regards to safety and the transportation of people and goods.

Recognising strengths

It is so important to have the right mentors and role models and people around you who recognise your strengths and where they might work within a particular discipline. I’ve seen too many young women who I think would have had great aptitude to come into engineering and the transportation sector, who have chosen to move away from it because they haven’t had the right support, or they have been streamed out because they don’t sit within the top 10% of the academic group.  I was really lucky because I had a great maths teacher at school whose father was an engineer. My teacher said to me: ‘I think the way you apply your knowledge would be suited to engineering’ and that is what led me to getting into the profession.

We need to talk about the wide range of occupations in the transport sector, the flexibility and the earning potential, whether it be in engineering, policy, regulation or working in a control room monitoring connected vehicles and traffic management.

Young women also need to see people like them in the room and around the decision-making table. As the first female President of Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia I encouraged each division to ensure their boards represented the gender diversity of their membership. This meant that we could increase female representation on the divisional and Australasian boards. With AI it is particularly important to have diversity of thinking when you are programming decision making for machines. Having more women in the tech sector ensures that we are able to build solutions, like AI, based on first-hand lived experiences of the programmers.

Backing your convictions

My advice is, if you believe that you have a great transformational idea for your business or industry - trust your instincts. Be prepared for people to challenge your views, and don’t be afraid to amend how you get to your goal, rather than changing your goal.  In any sector, but particularly transport, change is often hard and while you may have the right idea to drive a significant outcome, the timing may not be right, and the concept may be initially rejected.  I have done this throughout my career; overcoming criticism and ridiculing of ideas (eg stormwater capture and reuse, Zero Deaths on our roads, AusRAP and Connected and Automated Vehicles), to eventually see them eventually accepted, main-streamed and delivering great community benefits.

I encourage people to also consider the culture of their organisation. We might not be able to achieve work life balance, but you need to have work-life harmonisation If you don’t enjoy where you work, you need to be somewhere else. I am excited to be part of AWS that applies the Amazon  Leadership Principles that drive the culture and foster innovation at all levels within the organisation.