Spatial Media’s Ziggy Narayan has been involved in transport projects that have been excellent in their approach to connecting communities with vital new infrastructure that helped move people and goods through our cities and regions. From groundbreaking projects that have reshaped the daily commute to active transport solutions that connect people safely and seamlessly with vital destinations, Ziggy has helped connect billions of dollars of investment with vital stakeholders, whose engagement can determine success and failure.
We caught up with Ziggy to chat about two projects that he believes are not only leaders from a design and delivery perspective but also set the gold standard for community engagement.
“It has been a privilege to work on some truly amazing projects and to have seen first-hand the positive impact they have as they are delivered for communities across Australia. Picking two projects from the many I have worked on was an almost impossible challenge, but for scale, scope of work and a commitment from asset owners, contractors, designers and delivery partners to reach the highest standards of community engagement, Sydney Gateway and Rozelle Interchange are standouts,” said Ziggy.
Sydney Gateway
Comprising more than five kilometres of new road including 19 new bridge structures and over three kilometres of new pedestrian and cycling path, Sydney Gateway is a $2.6bn project to provide a new, toll-free connection from St Peters Interchange to improve journey times to Sydney Airport, the M5 and Eastern Distributor.
“We worked with the teams at Transport for NSW and contractors John Holland and Seymour Whyte to develop a complete set of community engagement resources that support connection with the community as well as key project information for construction and delivery teams.”
“Compiled and hosted in a highly informative engagement portal that serves as a central digital hub for all project-related information, the project has easy access to key project details with features including a construction notification tool, an interactive map with EIS information, media and document hosting, and forms for feedback, contact information and more.”
“As the project moves towards completion, we will further support the project with new updates, including pages on the project opening and upcoming traffic changes to keep the community informed and engaged as the new transport connection becomes ready for use,” said Ziggy.
Rozelle Interchange
The final stage of WestConnex, Rozelle Interchange, opened to traffic in November 2023 and has transformed how commuters travel across Sydney. On trips from Paramatta and Sydney CBD, time savings of up to 19 minutes have been achieved.
Consisting of 23 km of tunnels, four tunnel portals and 12 bridges, the Rozelle Interchange represents one of the most complex underground motorways ever undertaken globally.
“It's not often you have the opportunity to work on a project of this scale, and it is once in a lifetime that you have the opportunity to work on a project of this scale that is underground. This meant that the project's community engagement requirements were extremely complex, particularly regarding construction sequencing and community notifications.”
“Working with the Transport for NSW team and contractors John Holland and CPB, our first major project was the development of a Work Activity Tool, which enabled the project teams to engage and advise communities through the use of digital construction notifications.”
“This was the first time our proprietary Work Activity Tool was deployed on a project, and it has achieved significant success in ensuring community members were up to date with the latest news and were fully aware of any works that may impact them, their community or their travel plans.”
“We also created a bespoke tunnel visualisation to educate community members to learn more about the tunnel alignment with respect to their properties. In addition, our PDLP video helped to effectively promote the project's benefits and showcased the team’s architectural and placemaking expertise, successfully building excitement for the opening of a once-in-a-lifetime infrastructure project,” said Ziggy.
Connect Your Project
Sydney Gateway and Rozelle Interchange are two great examples of how complex projects can be showcased positively to communities through proactive community engagement strategies supported by the very latest in digital engagement tools and resources.
“Our tools can support projects of any scale and scope, from mega projects such as Rozelle Interchange to individual intersection or road upgrades,” said Ziggy. “And like the scale of community engagement needed, they can be deployed in a way to suit any project budget or requirement and should become a key consideration of any client or asset owner looking to do more than letterbox drops and newspaper ads to connect and inspire the communities that their projects will serve.”
To learn more contact Ziggy Narayan:
