Chief Minister Andrew Barr: the process of change was not handled well. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr has done what his Transport Minister couldn’t – apologise for the bungled MyWay+ rollout on the ACT public transport system.
The apology came after Mr Barr expressed full confidence in Chris Steel continuing to have responsibility for public transport, saying his minister had been given bad advice.
“We couldn’t stay with the old system but the process of change was not handled well, we acknowledge that, we apologise for that, we will do better with any future projects that have that sort of whole of community interface,” Mr Barr said.
Last Friday, Mr Steel fronted the media after being censured in the Legislative Assembly over a damning committee report on the rollout of the new ticketing system.
The report of the inquiry into the procurement and delivery of MyWay+ found that the public transport digital ticketing project was not ready to roll out on 27 November a year ago, was too large and complex, and highlighted poor risk management and project management practices.
It said the community testing was so rushed and haphazard as to be meaningless, and the ACT Government and Transport Canberra officials ignored multiple warnings that the new system was not ready.
Mr Steel was repeatedly asked whether he should apologise to the travelling public, especially seniors and people with disability who were most affected by the glitched system.
Mr Steel took responsibility for the new system’s failings, as well as the fixes, and would only acknowledge the impacts on the community, without offering an apology.
Speaking after delivering his State of the Territory address to the Canberra Business Chamber at the Hyatt, Mr Barr said the MyWay+ user testing was not as comprehensive as what had been presented, and it would have been beneficial to delay the launch date.
He said that when dealing with any system used by hundreds of thousands of people, the change management process needed to be thought through much more carefully than was the case with MyWay+.
The report also stated that MyWay+ was characterised by a lack of effective risk and project management, which continued a pattern observed in large ACT Government digital projects.
It recommended a review of risk management practices within the MyWay+ project and that the government launch an urgent program of project management reform across directorates.
Mr Barr said the government had taken on board the lessons learned and had put in place measures to improve the management and delivery of large ICT projects in the future.
This included consolidating the public service’s digital capability in a central agency, Digital Canberra.
Mr Barr said the government would not rush into any future digitalisation project – such as drivers licences – until the system was secure, reliable, and would meet the needs of users and deliver a better outcome than the present arrangement.
“On the public transport system, the most common complaint about the old one was that visitors and anyone else couldn’t use a credit card or a phone or a smartwatch to tap and go,” he said.
“The system does allow that, and that’s an important next step.”
