Meet the speakers: Stuart Ballingall, Executive General Manager, Transport Certification Australia
Ahead of his keynote speech at MEGATRANS2020, Stuart Ballingall, Executive General Manager at Transport Certification Australia offers his thoughts on the benefits of telematics, the importance of connecting with stakeholders and the national telematics framework.
The Transport Certification Australia (TCA) is a national organisation that provides assurance services relating to transport technologies and data to enable improved public purposes outcomes from the road transport sector.
Stuart Ballingall has been leading the association for the past year in his role as Executive General Manager. With an extensive background in senior public and private roles across the transport sector, he is excited about the benefits that telematics can offer the road transport industry.
“TCA’s role is centred around providing assurance services for transport telematics and associated data services. We have a strong focus on providing these services to the heavy vehicle industry. Ultimately, our reason for being is to help support productivity, asset management and safety outcomes to be achieved from the road transport sector,” Stuart says.
According to Stuart, the telematics industry is an evolving field. “Transport is like most other sectors in that more things are becoming connected and sharing data. This gives the opportunity to develop insights that stakeholders haven’t been able to have access to before. It’s driving a general update in telematics, but also in how this kind of technology can be used,” he says.
For Stuart, MEGATRANS2020 will offer a unique opportunity for all aspects of the logistics and transport sector to come together and hear about the developments taking place in telematics.
During Stuart’s presentation he will be discussing the National Telematics Framework, the framework is a digital business platform consisting of infrastructure and rules that support an open marketplace of telematics and related intelligent technology providers. The TCA administers this platform, it was established in 2003 and 2008 following a series of decisions made by Responsible Ministers and was globally recognised as an International Standard in 2012.
The presentation will also cover the new applications for telematics that are currently being developed with government and industry as part of the National Telematics Framework and Stuart will inform stakeholders about what the roadmap is looking like for deploying this framework.
“With telematics being such an evolving field, I hope that our presentation will provide an opportunity for relevant stakeholders to be brought up to speed on how telematics is starting to be used across the transport and logistics industry,” Stuart says.
MEGATRANS2020 offers a rare opportunity for professionals in this sector to step outside their day-to-day working life and learn about what is happening in their sector. Something that Stuart himself will be doing at the event.
“The good thing about events like this is they bring people together, particularly when much of the industry is spread out across the country,” he says.
Stuart wishes to stress that telematics offers more than the well-known benefits of improving safety and efficiencies. “There is such a positive conversation around telematics. We often find that when stakeholders realise the full breadth of benefits that can be realised from utilising telematics technology, it’s a very pleasing conversation” he says.
These benefits can depend on the stakeholder, but Stuart uses the example of a road manager. “It could be getting a better understanding of what is being moved where on your road network, it could be having knowledge to support better decisions about maintenance spend, or it could lead to improvements in the way you manage traffic and routes to generate efficiency gains. There is just so much,” Stuart says.
Stuart is also looking forward to exploring the exhibition floor at MEGATRANS2020, something he did at the launch event in 2018. “It’s certainly of value to see what’s on the exhibition floor, what’s come to market recently that is relevant to what we do. MEGATRANS provides a great opportunity to do this,” he says.
Stuart’s keynote speech will be taking place at 3.40pm on Thursday 2nd April. To book your tickets for MEGATRANS2020, visit: www.megatrans.com.au.
