Today's World Is Defined By Mobility

Jayaram Naidu, Bombardier Transportation’s head of project management for South-East Asia and Australia and head of services for South-East Asia, explains how his company is helping cities grow.

- Oliver Featherston

On average, a worker spends 139 hours a year commuting, the equivalent of 19 standard working days. These journeys are often set so deeply in routine that people rarely stop to think about how commuting is transforming urban life.

“Life is about movement. Just about everyone needs to get somewhere, whether it’s commuting to work, visiting family, or following a dream,” says Jayaram (Jay) Naidu, Bombardier Transportation’s Head of Project Management for South-East Asia and Australia and Head of Services for South-East Asia. “Large metropolitan cities are creating better public transportation which is now focused on urban mobility, better living and stronger communities.”

“Governments are shifting their focus towards urban planning and sustainability. The priority is now to improve the quality of life for residents by better connecting them with economic centres, urban areas, tourist destinations, schools, universities and health care, while also easing traffic congestion.”

At the moment, more than 100,000 Bombardier trains are serving cities across the world. Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, Bombardier Transportation employs around 39,000 people and its products and services operate in more than 60 countries. For Jay, it’s easy for him to be passionate about the role; Bombardier’s vision is to create innovative solutions to redefine the way people move within cities and between them.

“Today’s world is defined by mobility, and its demand is growing,” says Jay. “We’ve been contributing to the region’s growth for the past 30 years by transforming its public transportation network, and we’re changing the way we work. We’re shifting towards investing in the region’s rail engineering and supply chain, because rail networks are highly complex systems that require deep engineering expertise.”