Mobility Innovators

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:00:00]):

As out of the total revenue of Ruter, I think we spent 0.89% on development projects. I don’t think you find any private company that have this risk profile that they use so little in an industry that’s in that disruption. I think if you see that if this industry is disrupting and the risk of stranded assets is high and we spend a lot of money on infrastructure, what is more risky? I would say doing nothing is by far the riskiest. So actually we created the first Norwegian language-based language model in Norway. We’ve actually beat the main university with a month

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:00:54]):

Because we needed a better use of the Norwegian language. We even included the Norwegian and Swedish swear word list so we can actually get the temperature of the language of the customers. But to do this, we could actually take out some people that actually control the air condition systems because we can actually see it from the data that was switched on if it still didn’t work. We have the customers as the real-time witnesses whether it functioned. So we could actually cut back on quality that people actually went to the best depos and worked is their air conditioning switched on or is it working? So doing it this way, we could actually replace processes with AI and actually get the benefits out to the system. But this is nothing to do what is now coming in the next wave. And that is by any means much more serious.

Jaspal Singh ([00:01:52]):

Welcome to the Mobility Innovators Podcast.

Jaspal Singh ([00:01:59]):

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Mobility Innovator Podcast.

I’m your host, Jaspal Singh. On this podcast, we bring you conversation with leader shipping the future of mobility and transportation across the world. Today we are heading to Oslo, Norway, one of the most forward-thinking city when it comes to public transport and sustainable mobility.

I’m really pleased to welcome Bernt Reitan Jenssen, the CEO of RUTER AS. Pant has been leading Rooter since its inception in 2008 and has played a key role in transforming how mobility is planned, deliver and experience in Oslo region. Now it’s time to listen and learn.

Brent welcome to the podcast. It’s great to have you here.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:02:43]):

Thank you for inviting me.

Jaspal Singh ([00:02:45]):

It’s a pleasure. I know you have a really busy schedule and a lot of stuffs are happening in Oslo. So I really want to spend time next one hour, one and a half hour to little bit know more about you and what we are doing in Oslo, some of the exciting stuff.

But before discussing the city and transportation and all, I want to discuss about your personal journey because it’s quite interesting. I saw you started your career in logistics and postal service and then you moved to public transport and Ruter was great 2008. You were moving parcels and goods and now you’re moving people. So I want to know what drove you that shift from moving from logistic to public transportation and what is more interesting or challenging? Is it moving goods and logistics is more challenging or trusting or it’s people?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:03:32]):

Well, in a funny way, you can say that it’s not much difference coming to an industry that are used to moving people like parcels.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:03:43]):

And well, I think there’s something to that. I’ve been in some sort of logistics the most of my career, but then again, the same experience happened almost everywhere and that has to do with actually seeing the customers in all these logistics, the people that we are moving or even if it’s their parcels or mail we’re moving, there are still personal needs and customers behind all of this. I think being more customer-centric, I haven’t been anywhere which can gain from being more customer-centric. If you’re going to learn about the future, where else should you go than to your customers? Sometimes you have to take them to a part of the future that you think will happen and learn from them. Otherwise, they do what Henry Ford said. If I asked the customers today when he introduced automobiles, he said they just want faster horses. They don’t understand the concept.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:04:50]):

And that is still sometimes a bit true. But then again, you have to help them a bit and see actually how you can learn what they would expect from you in the future. So I wouldn’t say that’s much different whether you work for public transport than you work for the postal service for any transportation company and even probably most companies that has customers in that way. So it wasn’t much of a big change. It was a big restructuring job to do. That’s what I love. If there is transformation to be done, I just love it. And on top of that, you can actually work with something that means something for people in their lives. What a privilege you have to work in that sort of business.

Jaspal Singh ([00:05:37]):

And why public transport? Because you were doing great with postal service and logistic. And when this was a new agency, you were at the leadership position in a very established firm. Why did you decided to join a company which was just new and given a new responsibility dealing with all these new kind of discussion and topic? What motivated you to move to public transportation?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:06:00]):

Well, they wanted to do something that hadn’t been done for a long time. I think they came up with the idea of merging the transportation system in the city of Oslo with the surrounding county. They say that it was so much to gain from it, it should be done immediately. So it only took 43 years and seven attempts. And who could say no to a challenge like that? I think it also helped that some of my best friends say that these people have been quarreling for years and it’s like pouring money into black hole. The reputation the industry had at that stage, I must say mostly unfair to some cases in some instances, but still when you hear something like that, you just can’t say no, can you? That’s true. It’s going to be a very interesting journey and I have to tell you, it has overcome or it has been much more interesting than I ever imagined.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:07:07]):

I promise I remember it to stay for four years. It’s now 18 years ago. Eight Years. I have a hard time finding anything more interesting. So that’s the reason why I’ve stayed on.

Jaspal Singh ([00:07:18]):

That’s true. I mean, surviving and thriving for 18 years, that’s really great. And like you mentioned, many cities are… I mean, Oslo was thinking for 43 year. I know many cities which are deciding for 50 years and 60 year and they still couldn’t happen to create a structure like what Oslo has managed to do. So it’s very interesting what Oslo has. I mean, it’s a capital city of Norway. It’s a global podcast. So just for information for the listener with the population of around 724,000 inhabitants and Ruter isn’t public transport authority of the Oslo region. You guys are managing the whole public transport structure. Can you share a little bit more about what Ruter is and why you would say Ruter is fundamentally different from typical transit agencies? I mean, like you mentioned, you find this job interesting and working for last 18 year.

Jaspal Singh ([00:08:08]):

So what make it so interesting for you to spend 18 year of your life? And do you think Ruter as a transport provider or something broader today? Because I’m pretty sure your vision is not to work as a transport authority. You wanted to create something big and that’s why you decided to use this job. So what are the different features of Ruter you will tell the listener?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:08:32]):

Yeah. First of all, the capital has the amount of inhabitant you just mentioned, but the surrounding county creating together a region has about the same amount of inhabitants. Altogether, it’s about 1.3 million. And the administrative borders of human organization is sometimes in the way of creating a customer-friendly solution. The customers doesn’t really care where these administrative borders go if they cross their journeys. So just taking what I said about this customer-centric perspective is to try to look away from these borders that are put there by man. And so that was a challenge and to look upon this as a labor market and look at solutions, how to get people to work, how to get them home, how to get students to schools and how to dig into this market of leisure travels.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:09:46]):

It’s a region that have all these customers with these needs. I think one of the first things that was a part of going to Ruto was to create this transport system in this way. And since they had traveled so many times doing it, my first task was together with my chairman of the board, which actually recruited me to set this up. Basically, we in less than a year made all the contracts, all the negotiations. We had an excellent team from the two counties from Oslo and Akershus, which is the name of the surrounding county. And we actually agreed on one thing not to have separate lawyers just nominate one that we all trust.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:10:33]):

I think probably that was one of the main reasons it was possible to actually to do this, but I think most of all, it was a political will to do it. This law that this had to be done and then you had to make some compromises. If everybody wants to decide more than the others, it won’t happen. So here you have to find good compromises. And then when you did that, you also had to do it in organizing it in a way. And that’s a bit different with Rooter. They actually decided to organize this as basically a normal limited company, a shareholding company. And the shareholding is split in 60 / 40 between the two counties, basically creating a joint venture.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:11:20]):

And on top of this, they put a business board, a board with no active politicians. There are people in my board that have political experience. I guess you need to have that. And I after some years also developed some political experience so you actually can see how the systems work, how you can balance on this edge between business and political decision structures. But I report to a board and the board and the company and the shares are all owned by the city and the county and they actually nominate the board and they have the general assembly and you basically, democracy can impose any decision on router, but they have to go this structure. But then again, they create this distance between the political decisions and the decision in the company, which is actually beneficial for the politicians as well, because it’s possible for us to take unpopular decisions as well.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:12:22]):

That’s very hard being a politicians. Even to close a station or a bus stop could be very, very hard, even though it makes very much sense to do it. It’s easier to set the targets for us, the objectives, and then let us come up with a plan and execute the plan instead of taking all these decisions in the city hall. So it basically creates a more fast moving construction in the organization than being politically dependent on each and every decision. Even though it could be small or big decisions, the strategy we have to communicate with the city and the county. Otherwise, if that’s not compatible with what they want to do, it’s get into a stalemate quite easily. But aside from that, a lot of the day-to-day operation and the operate and the strategy, how to achieve these objectives for the city are basically handled by the company and the board.

Jaspal Singh ([00:13:24]):

That’s amazing. I think that’s really powerful what you mentioned about having this business board really help to, one, get the business knowledge and separate politician from the policymaking because sometime it’s hard for them to take some of the decision because they need to go back to public, but then they can say it is taken with the business rationale and done. And I mean, it’s a very good structure and it’s also make sure that the business is driven, like authority is driven more in a business way, not just as a political way, which is important for public transport to thrive.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:13:58]):

Yeah. I think because of course you have to respect democracy and if they really want something, of course, should do it, but otherwise you will just add things. It’s very easy to add things and it’s getting more and more expensive and you’re hardly taking anything out. So it just builds on that it was impossible to move an effort from one area to another. So one of the reasons why we actually created these early successes was to invest in public transport into areas where you could actually reach the objectives, where you actually could get value from the investments and you reached these targets that you can actually compete with cars. So you increased the offering and the quality of the service in areas that had the amount of people and you could actually obtain a system that was competitive.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:15:00]):

Otherwise, if you invested that in an area and the system was not competitive, you wouldn’t get the passengers and you wouldn’t have the reduction in the use of private cars that was in the objective set for us. So the ability to direct the effort and the investments of the public transport system was inevitable when it comes to results. If you start creating results like we did, I think I remember in the first years they said that to cover this all that this region was going to have a huge increase in population. It has been for many of these years I’ve been there, been the fastest growing urban community in Europe. I think two years ago we actually surpassed since I started 30% growth in population in a little more than 15 years, which is a struggle for any community to handle just building infrastructure.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:16:10]):

And we saw that if we were to build road capacity to cover the increase in transport, it would be very, very hard. It mean huge infrastructure investments. So they said that, could we do this with public transport instead, make sure that… But then you have to make sure that car traffic growth in car traffic reaches as more or less a standstill. And they thought, well, that’s going to be tough, give it a try. And basically to achieve that is what we’ve been doing for these 17 years. We covered this growth in demand for motorized transport with public transport, increasing public transport there. We have the double amount, twice as many customers now as when I started. And the car traffic coming in through the tolls around Oslo is about a 2009 level – That’s Amazing.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:17:22]):

With an increase of population of 30%. And if you start creating these results, you actually build the trust with your politicians and your owners and the building your trust, you get the freedom to try out new things, to innovate and even do mistakes. And innovation without mistakes, I haven’t ever heard of that.

Jaspal Singh ([00:17:45]):

That’s very impressive, Bernt . I mean, this is doubling the growth of riders and reducing the car traffic, keeping it same level of 2009, which is quite impressive and at the same time population has grown. And likely you mentioned, I mean, I can see for last 20 minutes you’re focusing on customer centric, you’re highlighting the importance of customer centric. And like you mentioned, the traditional transport system move people like Parcel. So we really need to think about… And I think one of the things you did when you joined Ruter is to start calling Passenger as customer. You stop saying Passenger, you shift your approach calling Passenger to customer. I want to know why do you think it’s important to call Passenger as customer and how did it change the way you operate? Because sometimes people don’t realize when you just call them passenger, you don’t feel the duty to serve them better, but the customer can really feel the feeling of like you have to serve them.

So what is ideology behind it?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:18:49]):

When I joined, we inherited a ticketing system that was not really a success story. It was like most ticketing systems in public transport, it was not there for the customers, it was there for the company basically and it didn’t work really well. And the business model was actually also to at one point in time actually ruined because it was based on tapping, but they’re not everywhere. And we had to ask the customers to tap even though they had a valid ticket and if they didn’t tap, they could result in getting not a full, but smaller fin for not tapping. And then suddenly the national minister said that there is no way we are going to allow a system that you find a customer that actually has a ticket and boom away went the entire business model with this ticketing system. And it created a distance between the company and their customers.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:20:02]):

We were like sitting on the sixth floor looking down on them and they were looking up at us and sort of, why are you not listening to us? Why are you doing all these things that irritates us? So what I did actually that we said that these people out there, they might be angry at us sometimes and think we irritate them, but they really want to help us. So what I did is I got some really good consultants that could help us with this and to get with them as interviewers, we went home to the customers and I basically sat in a coach after traveling her journey to a woman in one of the suburbs and listening to her describing actually the interaction and actually how we work for her, actually how her journey turned out. And I was sort of sitting there because just listen, don’t try to explain.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:21:07]):

It was really hard. It was really, really hard. But I also learned one thing that she really wanted to help us.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:21:15]):

So after this, I sent the entire company even from the darkest corners of the accounting department out to see customers out on the street. And together they had a sheet of paper where you can ask questions, “What do we do well? What do you think would you wish you could change? What do we do that irritates you the most?” And then asked them to do something in 2011 that was quite new, take a selfie with a customer, ask them if they wanted it. And then we took all these interview forms with the customers and painted the entire office with it.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:22:08]):

And the experience in the organization is that meeting the customers was not dangerous. These people out there want to support public transport. They want to help us, and they were so glad that we reached out to them. So it was a very positive experience. And I can tell you, pasting all the walls with these photos was the day we actually turned customer centric because it started to build a culture that working together with the customers, they’re not only our customers even, they’re actually our owners. So to interact with them and take them in on advice, ask them, work with them, find the new solutions like I started, understanding the future together with our customers, that builds a culture, that builds a reputation and that builds trust. And to have this trust out there creates a lot of colleagues that we can do this together with.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:23:12]):

They’re not only just then customers, they’re partners in what we want to achieve. And then it’s actually also easier to ask them, at least as a group, if you ask an individual person whether it’s a good idea to close your stop, but if you ask them as a group, you will get more respect and understanding even for taking more difficult decisions. So I think that is a perspective that you can’t do, you can’t actually just decide it, you actually have to live it to get to that position. But for me, it was very much different from working from an organization that you have a team around you that think this way than a team that want to impose regulations and fines.

 

Jaspal Singh ([00:24:04]):

No. And like you mentioned, taking people from the dark corner of the office and sending them one field, it’s really powerful. And I tell people, and actually you mentioned in the beginning is like your customer help you to create your future. So you need to talk to them to understand what’s the future you want to do.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:24:21]):

Now at office – I can tell you, I still do it. I go out of the office because you can buy services and expensive consultant workers. If you want to know something about the customers, take the elevator down or even the stairs and go out and talk to some of them. If you talk to 10 and nine of them thinks it’s a good idea, you’re probably right. You save some money.

Jaspal Singh ([00:24:47]):

Yeah. It’s a lot of money. And also like you said, they feel ownership. They feel like you are listening to them and they are not the user. They are actually the supporter because they are the one who are actually supporting public transport to work in a big way. No, I mean, you are doing a lot of good stuff and you mentioned something very powerful. If you are doing successful thing, you get more liberty to commit mistake and innovation cannot happen without mistake. I mean, Oslo is doing a lot of innovation. Ruter is forefront, I would say in many staff. One of the key work you guys are doing is on autonomous vehicle and autonomy. And Ruter is one of the early adopters of autonomous vehicle. I think you start trialing self-driving vehicle in 2019 and recently you signed agreement with Oslo and Akershus. So I want to understand how you see the future of autonomous vehicle and how this deployment will help you to achieve the future objective.

Jaspal Singh ([00:25:44]):

Because like you said, you want to create frictionless travel and customer-centric travel for people. So how do you think the autonomous vehicle will help you to achieve that?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:25:53]):

Well, this could be, first of all, this is a disruptive technology. It’s autonomous vehicle is probably up until now it has been more denounced application of AI where a lot of the algorithms that you need to create a digital driver is based on the most advanced forms of AI up until now. Now we have agentic AI, which is basically going to transform even more of what we do. But going back to autonomy in vehicles, it has the potential of solving a lot of problems and the potential to create a lot of new ones. I think on the positive side, of course, you can have more safety, it could be less injuries and deaths in traffic, you can have a service that’s less dependent on the human factors like working time and night driving and driving under difficult conditions. In Norway, we always have the misperception that in bad weather and slippery conditions and snow, we are so good human drivers that the computers can’t compete with us.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:27:22]):

It couldn’t be more wrong. When I drive on ice, I don’t measure the slipperiness or the friction 10 times every second. The robot will do so

 

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:27:37]):

A lot of the technical driving would be better with autonomous vehicles. But I think the challenge comes to when it comes what kind of system of service or value for the customer it actually creates because by default right now, autonomous driving is applied to robo taxis. Robo taxis are individual journeys exactly like driving your private car. Individual journeys demand the land, demand energy, it creates congestions. It’s about all the things that public transport could be a problem solver to. So we could end up having more of the problems that we are already struggling to solve if you apply this technology in the wrong way. So that is to my opinion and creating quite a substantial amount of European city followers is to try to create a service where you can apply this technology without having increased individual transport. And I’m saying this because I think there’s still going to be individual transport, even though being a fan of public transport, but to find the right balance like we have done in Ruter up until now, not creating more individual journeys in cars and still having a happy population is even so that the motorists are happy with the toll system around the city where they’re actually paying to increase public transport, which they do when they see the effects of it that it frees up road space.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:29:19]):

So how can we apply this new technology with still having enough road space to keep the traffic moving? And that’s only if we can make this a shared service. How can we create a data-driven shared service that is so good it would actually make people think twice before they buy at least first maybe a second car because we are always thinking you have the most complex problem to solve. But in my city, there’s a lot of second cars and even some families that have a third one.

Jaspal Singh ([00:29:57]):

Third One as well.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:29:59]):

Yeah. So how Oh, if you take 25% of the market for a second car, if you can make people think twice before they buy the next one, we’ll double our business. So how can we do that? And then I think the key is not only being autonomic, it is connected to how we use the data that we have and how do we use the insights coming from data, creating a real-time transport system instead of a statistical driven static one, which is normally called public transport. It’s based on what people used to do instead of what they actually need right now. And that is for me is the perfect application of using big data real time with the AI algorithms. So that is the strategy behind why we in Rooter in 2016 decided that we were to became a data company or a data-driven company, which was my mother-in-law saw in the newspapers and said that I just discovered the April Fools joke in the newspapers that Rooter becoming a data company.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:31:20]):

It’s just insane. But to be able to collect that amount of data from your customers, from the city, from our vehicles to create this platform for designing online transport services has been connected with self-driving or autonomous vehicles is something of the future that can solve problems for us instead of creating new ones.

 

Jaspal Singh ([00:31:49]):

As a CEO of a public transit company, I mean, are you excited about autonomous mobility or are you scared? Because I talk to a lot of people and I get a mixed reaction. Sometimes people are very excited, sometimes people are scared, and sometimes people have no clue. They feel it’s still decades away and I tell them that’s not true. How do you feel in a role of a CEO of a public transport company? Because some people ask me, should we expand rail infrastructure more now or should we not expand with the technological advancement? And my point will be like, do you feel it can complement public transport, it can compete public transport, or both? How it will happen?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:32:33]):

I’m excited because it’s the perfect partner for public transport done in the right way. We can give public transport to people that never experienced public transport. We can give public transport an increasing elderly population, which is going to lose the driving licenses and kept up on mobility. So if you do this, see the opportunities of this, how to integrate it with public transport, I think that’s really important. If you have this as a separate system, a separate taxi system, and we don’t see how to include it in the network we are running, we risk being stranded assets and have more of the problems that I just mentioned. Then it’s a good reason to be scared. If you do it the right way, from my perspective, it can give immense opportunities to give transportation to people that don’t have access to it today in a very reasonable way because we can produce in a bus, 60% in Oslo at least is the cost of the driver.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:33:45]):

So if you take the driver out, there’s got to be a shortage of them anyhow. It is in some cities already. So you probably need to do this not only on demand responsive transport, also on the normal bus lane. So it’s not about creating new services, it’s also about automating the others.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:34:07]):

Our bus contract is like 10-12 years, so it’s not going to happen overnight, but we have to look at the way to use the workforce that we have for things that we need in society that can’t be automated and automate what we can. At least that’s going to be the case in this part of the world.

Jaspal Singh ([00:34:30]):

I fully agree with you. And one, the driver shortage is real. The manpower is shrinking. And then a lot of people are aging an old population and the life expectancy is rising. People want to stay mobile, people want to stay moving around the city, and then you need to provide services. I remember one time you asked me this question is there any city which is already planning the future infrastructure? And you rightly mentioned some of the bus contract are next 10 to 12 years, but for sure after next 10 to 12 years, there will be these autonomous vehicle which will be running around. So is Ruter planning future infrastructure right now? I mean, are you getting ready for next contract where probably you don’t need restroom for driver, you need other kind of facility? So how do you think about creating these future infrastructure now?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:35:21]):

First, as a PTA, we are building a new metro line now that’s going to be finished in four years time. And how to integrate these types of services into that line? How could we actually reach the stations? How could we create an information system? And that creates a seamless journey for the customers. We’re in the midst of doing that now or thinking of how could that happen? But it’s not only autonomous driving, it’s also scooters and then the other means of transport. In Oslo, when you come to a stop based on the data we have from the customers in the bus, if you know that on the next stop, a lot of them is going to take a scooter. The number of free scooters pops up on the screens in the bus. So that kind of data integration and seamless transport, we already have started the journey on, but now we are getting a much more competent partner in these type of vehicles.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:36:26]):

So integration, we have to think about that. And for a long time already we have had the flexibility in the bus contracts, for instance, that a part of the contracts could be changed over to a new kind of technology. Oh, that’s nice. So we already have a lot of contracts that have that kind of flexibility built into them that we could change the way of operation in these contracts if we get this kind of technology available. And it would be more and more important, especially when we look into the contracts that run in rural areas where we have few passengers drive a lot of school children in the morning and in the afternoon and the rest of the time drive around with almost empty big buses where we have to look at the environmental footprint that we make doing our operations in that way. So to be able to scale almost everything we do based on data is much easier when you don’t have to facilitate the cost of a driver that needs a full working day or have a split shift and needs to rest and all that sort of things.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:37:42]):

You can also utilize these vehicles around the clock because you will be able to drive at the times where there are so few pagers that you just wait for the data and run a demand responsive service instead of our schedule line. So we really have to rethink the way we organize transport into a sector or into an area and giving ourselves the flexibility to do that within the next contracts period, the contract periods that we currently enter into. So you never know. I’m often asked, when will this happen? And normally about these big shifts in technology, we are quite optimistic about timeframe that we always in a certain way underestimate the impact of these changes. And now we have maybe overestimated and think that, oh, it took longer. And then you can’t see it that clearly when it actually happens. But I think now you see that way when I was coming to Europe.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:38:48]):

All of the cities in the US already been implemented. People if you go over there after two minutes, you stop thinking about that steering wheel going round and round with no one sitting in the front seat. You can see the quality of the driving has increased even in the… We’ve been doing this in Oswald as well. You can see that it’s not an engineer approach anymore. You actually see car as a communicator. It communicates with the passengers, it communicates with in driving behavior, it communicates with the motorists around it so we can actually see you not only with blinkers, but how the vehicle actually moves the intentions in traffic. It’s getting more and more advanced system. So you can see now it’s getting there, but still there’s only a few players out there that have the ability to create a full future digital driver, but more I’m sure will come.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:39:48]):

And you will see this now being rolled out in an increasing speed.

 

Jaspal Singh ([00:39:57]):

It will definitely happen. And like you mentioned about the change, it happened very slowly in the beginning, so we don’t realize, but then it happens suddenly and then we caught off guard and don’t realize. And I feel for autonomous vehicle, same way. Given the technology is progressing for so many years, it’s getting slowly into the market now, but one day it’ll be like we will see more and more vehicle running on autonomous technology. Now Ruter, you already mentioned this point about there is a vision to make Ruter as a data company and you guys are already investing a lot of money into AI, data platform, big data, even quantum computing you are exploring, which is very amazing because I never heard any transport agency talking about quantum computing, but Ruter is already thinking about these new tool.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:40:43]):

I can give you an example because if you’re going to create a route where you have all this demand coming in and understanding of the market, where would you ask your passengers to go and meet the bus? If you can make two of them go to the same place, you create a much more efficient way. So we use quantum algorithms on these data, creating these dynamic stop points for the vehicle.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:41:11]):

Yeah, that’s one application we already use this technology, even though it’s still at a research base. But to understanding how to use this in big data optimization where if you want to do this, if you have 1.2 million journey plans active on your system and you get one more, which line or which bus to place that has it on means that you have to recalculate your entire ecosystem pretty often or I think it’s like every second I think we have to do it to be able to do this. That creates a need for immense computing power. And you have to find a way to do that without spending too much energy. And we’ve seen that quantum computing is probably a way to do this spending less energy than conventional computing. So that’s one of the reasons why we are interested in this and try otherwise AI is going to be one of the real big problems when it comes to energy consumption for the world.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:42:21]):

And hopefully you can do more sense than creating immense cat videos and do something tensible with it. And this is probably one of the areas where it makes sense to spend some computing power.

Jaspal Singh ([00:42:34]):

That’s amazing. I mean already we are seeing a lot of issues in North America, especially in US about the power because of this AI uses. So you rightly mentioned about the power consumption will become more and more important. And that’s a very good example you shared about how you’re using quantum computing and quantum algorithm. I talked to a lot of leader and they say, “Hey, we are interested in AI, but we don’t know what are the real use cases for AI.” And also they still see AI as a cost-centric investment. They don’t see as a return. So from brutal perspective, have you guys implemented AI strongly in certain area? And did you see some return from that investment or it’s just another tool? It’s like, “I just invest in IT, but I never get the return back.” But did you find anything like getting some return on investment from AI as of today?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:43:29]):

Yeah, I think there are more than a hundred processes in the which is now AI supported. And I can give you one example, that ticket inspection. We had managers that planned ticket inspection. They were setting up where to go, how to get there, reporting results, creating a plan for next week based on some of these results, what they wanted to achieve. It’s now all done by AI. There is no planning or ticket inspections anymore. There are algorithms that create where to go based on observations where we think there is innovation, but it’s also a socially accepted algorithm and it actually creates social exception. We don’t only go to low income areas. Actually, that’s one of the criteria for the algorithms to create socially accepted ticket inspection. And it also of course comes up with how should the inspectors travel to get there in the most efficient way? So just taking away two managers that actually did this and put them in on more sensible part of the job, you’re not paid for the entire thing.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:44:50]):

But it has to do, how do you approach this? So our journey in AI started with going together with the local university, having some student projects and hiring a couple of the professors and doing some low-hanging fruit task demonstrators with the intention of creating an interest and starting preparing the organization, building a competent demand in the organization, understanding what AI can do for us. And after that, we came up with, I think about 70 different cases coming from the business line, where to find these possible applications for AI support. And we started working and now the people in AI now, the AI job department or the AI team that we had is now integrated in the business line. So they’re working with the business people supporting them. But that gave us two types of AI. It gave us the machine learning and then in these processes then the operational processes.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:46:12]):

And it started to use generative AI in business support, generating sentimental analysis. For instance, in CRM, you start asking people to send complaint and forms to us. We just started scraping social media, finding everyone that talked about us, not only to us and starting using this data to improve our service, understanding our customer satisfaction. So it made it possible for us to create the real-time customer satisfaction map that we had in the reception. We can actually see what is the status of customer satisfaction right now and you can see what is wrong and what they think is good. And we can see where the complaints are. Is it connected to some sort of errors in the system, the delays and the other disruptions? For instance, we can see if a bus is overheated so we can take it out of service if the air conditioner had gone broke.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:47:21]):

So there’s a lot of active things we could do by monitoring and using language models. Actually, we created the first Norwegian language-based language model in Norway. We’ve actually beat the main university with a month.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:47:37]):

Because we need a better use of the Norwegian language. We even included the Norwegian and Swedish swear word list so we can actually get the temperature of the language of the customers. But to do this, we could actually take out some people that actually control the air conditioning systems because we can actually see it from the data that we switched on. If it still didn’t work, we have the customers as the real time witnesses whether it functioned. So we could actually cut back on quality that people actually went to the bus depots and worked. Is their air conditioning switched on? Is it working? So doing it this way, could actually replace processes with the AI and actually get the benefits out to the system. But this is nothing to do what is now coming in the next wave. And that is it by any means much more serious because what we do right now is that we look at our processes.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:48:39]):

Are we doing them the right way? Is there enough role innovation? Is this the right people that does the right things? And to do that, we have another big project together with the organization and the unions how to create this transformation that we’re probably going to work in a completely different way. We are going to create super workers that are AI supported the different tools. We use a lot of cold code and vibe coding in creating new processes. And that’s basically a big transformation of the entire company. And that’s where the true benefits from the investment we made in AI competence, we call this the AI promise. It’s a Norwegian, it’s a promise for transformation, but it’s also a promise to the people in the organization that we will lift their competence, making them AI super workers for those who are in position where they actually work in teams with AI agents.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:49:47]):

But it’s impossible to do that without doing it together with the team, with the people, creating the forward-leaning atmosphere, the curiosity we need to do this. And when we do that, the real benefits, you can have some benefits from tools, from AI tools, but the real benefits comes with where you use AI as a base for creating new business processes. Then you have to do it in a secure way. You have to look at the data and technologies that you have control over the access to these technologies and you have to have processes and all these security issues you also have to solve. But it will be irresponsible not to apply this kind of technology in this way, seeing the huge potential benefits you will have when it comes to higher quality, less errors, less costs benefits that we are currently looking for that are substantial working with AI in this way.

Jaspal Singh ([00:50:59]):

No, that’s amazing. I mean the point you mentioned about wipe coding and having this real-time customer heat map to understand what are the key customer complaint. So you don’t need to wait for a six-month survey or one-year survey to identify because then you can’t take any action to improve it. And here you also win the confidence of customer because if they complain about something and next day they see it is rectified or it’s corrected, they feel more engaged in the system and the customer loyalty will increase. So that’s

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:51:29]):

Super – We also learned some lessons and one of them was that first of all, you have to handle personal data. You have to find that because customers share a lot of things they shouldn’t do on social platforms. So I think we spent most time in developing this system by getting rid of the personalized data that we didn’t want to handle. But we also thought it was a good idea that somebody that claimed about a delayed bus posted on the media, we actually could see who posted it. We could see what kind of bus it was. We could actually see the statistics of the bus so we can do is this true or has it happened a lot lately? So we can generate an answer back to an agent answering on the social platform. “Hello John, you’re absolutely right and you’re so sorry that the bus is delayed now again, and here’s the link to refund.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:52:26]):

“It’s not a good idea to do that in less than a second because you create an immense sense of surveillance. They will start looking over their shoulders. Who’s watching this? They should be concerned posting on social medias anyhow, but there is something, some considerations you should make about, I think it could be too steep a conversion.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:52:54]):

If you do something like that. So we actually put that delay or a couple of minutes before we get that sort of answer.

Jaspal Singh ([00:53:00]):

So that they feel like it’s not somebody watching us. Now this is one of the question I want to ask you because you mentioned we are not estimating the wave of AI coming if the next generation will be much more powerful and all. And a lot of organizations are now having these agents, AI agents working in their offices along with the human staff. You mentioned the importance of team, but I feel these AI agent will be much more powerful in coming days. So at Rooter, you have already developed some AI agent to work with the staff member?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:53:33]):

Yeah. So I can highly recommend a top management event is pizza and cold coding.

Jaspal Singh ([00:53:46]):

Oh, pizza and cold coding.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:53:50]):

I did that with my management group a couple of months ago because now the threshold of understanding how this technology is working, it’s like ChatGPT. It was the first time my mother could understand what AI actually could do. And to have your people in their organization understanding what wide coding could do. And I think one of them is going to be vital because it’s going to be a part of a lot of the types of job we do, at least in the PTA. There are of course jobs out there that are not going to be that affected, but there’s a lot of jobs that are going to be affected. And to understand where this is taking us and to avoid one common mistake. And that is to see all the child diseases that these technology have and think they’re going to be forever. I heard so many times people say that this was a problem and this is a problem with this technology.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:54:55]):

And now this development goes so fast that when we first started adopting cloud code, we see that there was a lot of security issues and there was a lot of issues with it. Now we use it to find security holes instead of being worried about the holes in the code that the system created. And that’s something where advancement and improvement happens in weeks, not in years or months. So what’s true today about faults and weaknesses might be solved just in days. You never know. So if you think you can’t use a technology for one thing because of aspects with it, it might not be true in just a short time.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:55:45]):

And that doesn’t mean we should think everything is safe, but we have to find way to, what if it becomes safe? And that’s more likely to happen if more people are concerned about it. The problem will be solved. And the speeches I held about concerns about safety two months ago might not be relevant anymore. That’s true. So this is things that are developing so fast now. The truth is moving when it comes to these kind of aspects. And I’m not saying this because there are not things to be concerned about, but be careful about holding them for carved in rock. It might change. It might change even though some fundamentals are going to be with us for at least some time.

Jaspal Singh ([00:56:39]):

Yeah. I mean, in fact, Claude has not released yet their new version, which is Methos for finding the cybersecurity bugs because they feel it’s so powerful it can take down any system. And my worry is nobody’s concerned in transportation sector because we are much more connected than ever. And if that is true, like you said, how can we make a system safe? And we should use that tool to make our system safe rather than get worried about that it can find vulnerabilities, but actually it can help us to make it much more safer.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:57:12]):

Yeah. And we actually have also to take more responsibility, I think, for our own safety. And that’s one of the reasons why we took two hour buses, one an older electric bus and then a brand new one and drove them into a mine and say what kind of communication is coming out of them and what kind of cybersecurity is built into them? Could they be manipulated? Could somebody hack them, stop them, make them inaccessible in a critical situation? And I saw that I wish there were more grownups in that room. We found things that all of… First of all, I had to say that we were not surprised what we found. It was actually better than we fared. A bus is probably three, four, five years behind a modern car. The technology on the car is much more advanced and has many more security aspects than the current generation of buses, but that will change.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([00:58:18]):

The next generation will have much of the same issues that we saw with cars unless we as a business now start raising the bar when it comes to demand in our purchases. We have to ask for more and better cybersecurity in vehicles and that could be sold. But if you don’t ask for it, why should the supplier invest in it and add the cost to it unless we actually come up with these demands on what kind of security we actually will have or request on the vehicles that we operate? It’s not like old days where it was just the cables and it’s a connected device now with software updates. And that’s a completely new environment for handling something like cybersecurity.

Jaspal Singh ([00:59:23]):

Yeah. Earlier days you can close your vehicle inside a garage or in a closed environment, but nowadays nothing is controlled because it’s connected over the internet. And like you mentioned, they are much more connected. The experiment you mentioned about it was quite publicized at that time when you took two buses to the mines and discover. Like you said, you didn’t feel much feared with what you found, but did it change your perception about the future tendering? Like you mentioned, now you’re thinking about how to make your tender much more robust and all. So what kind of lesson you want to share with others when they’re procuring these new vehicle, especially the electric buses which are much more connected than the traditional one, what three or four key area they should look for?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:00:13]):

First I would say that, well, is this an electrical bus problem? No, I would say any connected vehicle, if you want to add a code that start ruin your battery in the electric bus, you can just as well add the code that will crash your diesel engine. So I think it’s nothing really to do with electric buses or the drivetrain, it has to do with connectivity. So basically if you are connected and you can receive or you can have software onboard your vehicle that in certain circumstances could be manipulated in a way you don’t want to happen. That could be a part, it was much political discuss whether that was a part of the vehicle from the start, but I would say it’s much more likely that somebody with that bad intention will hack into it because if you stop your own bus, you will hardly sell any more buses.

So why should you?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:01:20]):

It’s a bad reputation. If that happens, it’d be the most extreme cases, but to protect it from malicious third parties is a much more likely scenario. And for that reason, the code might get in there by software updates. It could use back doors in ships, pretty advanced technologies to do so, which fortunately I would say we have in common with windmills and generators and much other critical infrastructure. So I think we must cooperate with those that have the same problem and find common solutions because this demands capacity or competence that most PTAs and bus operators don’t have. So how do we actually create this kind of competence and make it accessible so you can actually put that kind of precautions into tenders and technology specifications so we can actually make this industry safer? I think that’s a completely new world out there now that we actually have to adapt to and we can’t do that alone.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:02:39]):

We actually have to do it as businesses that has this common challenge.

Jaspal Singh ([01:02:47]):

I agree. I agree. And it’s also the capacity issue and also the knowledge, like the talent, you don’t have all the talent available within the same organization. And this is one of the questions when I talk to a lot of leader, this is the kind of trade-off they struggle with. They feel like we are a traditional public transport company, whether authority and operator, and our role is to operate vehicles. They don’t want to be the front leader for innovation. And you said something very powerful, you said innovation cannot happen without mistake. But the problem is if mistake happen, it’s all over the newspaper and it being publicized and created this news. What is your experience about how to balance between staying, being innovative at the same time operating these critical infrastructure? End of the day, Ruter is providing the mobility services. You’re not just there to experiment or innovate or you have some other thought in your mind?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:03:44]):

No, it’s a very good question and it has to be about. We are perceived as quite innovative and doing, like you said, a lot of very interesting new things. But as out of the total revenue of Ruter, I think we spend 0.89% on development projects. I don’t think you find any private company that have this risk profile that they use so little in an industry that’s in that disruption. I think if you see that if this industry is disrupting and the risk of stranded assets is high and you spend a lot of money on infrastructure, what is more risky?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:04:36]):

I would say doing nothing is by far the riskiest. And I think if you lean a little bit more forward and you say that you do mistakes, I think it was Nelson Mandela who said that I never win or lose, I win or learn. So it’s about creating small, cheap mistakes which are suitable for learning instead creating big catastrophes where what normally happen if you do something that if you continue to do something that you always done that the world has left behind, that could create far bigger disasters than actually learning and keeping in path with using the technology and understanding it and trying to make better services for the customers. And if you can say, look in the mirror and say that it actually created the results that I talked about, you can say that the board, any of my politicians says to me, we just want Rooted to be that kind of company.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:05:46]):

And it’s based on creating results that we always overachieved our budgets. We always created a higher customer satisfaction and a ratio when it comes to market share competing with the car that’s been higher than people actually thought we could achieve. And if you do that and they asked me to do it without innovation, I would say that’s impossible. You have to find the right mix doing exactly enough. And if you create an organization like that, you have all the talents coming to work for you. We need those new talents now working for public transport and to have them to come and work with us if you’re not really creating an interesting job, how could you expect them to come? So doing what we’ve been doing on AI, which I told you we actually could put to another project actually put directly to the bottom line.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:06:45]):

My daughter studies at the university in Bergen and she talked to me one day and said that all these people in AI, they actually talk about their favorite summer job would come and work for Rooter.

Jaspal Singh ([01:06:57]):

Oh, okay.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:07:00]):

And I said, then we achieve something. That’s true. So to do that, you have to work together with students and you have to create interesting working places and an interesting job when it comes to content. But I also say that, and I haven’t said that and I haven’t mentioned that, we have this fantastic vision. It’s that sustainable freedom to move. We are actually in the world’s best business. We are in the freedom business. The freedom to move is in one of the most important aspects of freedom, which is at the heart of humanity. If people can’t move, they’re not free. So we are not in public transport. Public transport even though it’s a very interesting business, but the impact of public transport is freedom. That’s right. Could you be in a better business? And if you want to attract young people to come and work for you, you have to give them purpose.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:07:55]):

And could you give them any better purpose than this? To be in a forward-leading company that actually is customer-centric and looks at new solutions using advanced technologies and actually provide some of the most important aspects of life, creating the freedom to move for these inhabitants and customers and travelers in our region, that makes this quite a different employer than the one I joined 17 years ago.

Jaspal Singh ([01:08:24]):

That’s very true. And your point about doing nothing is more riskier in this today’s world than doing something and experimenting and creating. And like you said, all the young people want to work for Rooter, that’s a big achievement because that’s what people are struggling with. Now I want to shift gear a bit and want to talk about your leadership philosophy. And like you mentioned, you were running Rooter for last 15 year and you’re doing a lot of interesting stuff. But let’s say if you had to start Rooter again today, what would you do differently? Because you created a legacy now for 18 years, but let’s say somebody asked you, “Hey, you need to now create a new agency. How will your leadership philosophy will change for today’s world?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:09:07]):

Yeah. Well, all good decisions have one thing in common. They were taken too late.

So I would probably recognize the need for speed even more. Try to move faster. But we also always work as a team. And in my career, creating teams, especially at the top management level, spending a lot of time together, understanding the power of diversity. Diversity creates innovation. If you have all the people the same or you have people that only share for you sitting on the stands clapping for every move you do, you have to find the people that are different from you because they’re probably better at things you are not good at. And if you really want to work with these people, you have to accept diversity. But diversity just as diversity is just costs. Diversity, if you learn how to harvest it, is gold. That’s true. So to create diversity is the best recommendation I can give for creating an atmosphere for innovation.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:10:32]):

I would also say that creating a team that could actually tell their opinions, creating the psychological safety or an atmosphere of sharing where you can actually disagree. If you don’t dare to disagree, you will never get the second opinion out.

Jaspal Singh ([01:10:58]):

Yeah, that’s true.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:11:00]):

That’s true. So for me, it’s all about creating team culture and having a diverse team culture. I remember starting this, a psychologist came to me and said, “In your management team, there’s one person said just about to leave.” And I said, “I just can’t wait. This person is so different and always complains and I never understands what I’m telling her to do. ” And I said, “Well, the rest of them are quite like you. They don’t say anything. They just share you. ” And after that, I really understood something about how to create a culture where the top management is a team where I can any day leave. And I’m absolutely sure things will turn out probably maybe even for the better. But that your top job, the most important job as a CEO is to create this team and keep it alive. That’s

Jaspal Singh ([01:12:04]):

So powerful. And I really love your point about having this diversity, not just for the sake of diversity, but really bringing diversity of thought and knowledge and experience and expertise. That’s very powerful. Now the world is changing very fast, technology and all, and you mentioned the young people are excited to work for Rooter. What advice would you give to the young professional entering the space today with this rapid technology change and any skill or mindset they should absolutely need to develop to survive for next 15, 20 years? I’m worried about my kids because I feel like what is a skill I should teach them? Is it technology? Is it creativity? Is it public speaking? Is it language? What according to you is the skill people should develop?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:12:48]):

First of all, I would recommend turning that question around. Actually, people in my age should more often ask younger people what they think I should do.

Jaspal Singh ([01:13:02]):

I agree.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:13:07]):

I would be very concerned about asking a person in my age with a gray beard what the future talent should choose. I think we have a responsibility to take care of them. Right now I’m a bit worried. And that means the introduction of the AI models now is taking away the first wave of jobs that’s going to go is junior jobs in consultancy companies. They’re already gone. So a career that normally started with getting high grades from a top university grade, then going to a consultancy company, learning processes and starting on a career, that career route is blocked.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:13:59]):

It’s almost gone. And since AI is taking over so many jobs now, getting from a university and into this type of competence work into organization is getting harder. We almost shut that door and I don’t think we actually realized the consequences of that. It’s so fresh. And that these young talents and students can do nothing about. We can do something about that. You really have to think about that because what seems like shortsighted good decisions could be a very tough curve to get around for young people today getting employed. So first of all, I would consider that. And then in other parts of labor, like plumbers and the carpenters and things like that, until they have the humanoids, there’s still going to be a lot of need for these kinds of jobs also in healthcare. But in this competence heavy workforce, the disruption, I can always see that the disruption happening there is pretty tough.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:15:27]):

And we really need to make sure that we in five years have senior consultants because we don’t have any juniors to recruit from.

Jaspal Singh ([01:15:38]):

Nobody promoted across the level, so then you have a vacuum all across.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:15:43]):

So that is one of my concerns that I think we as true grownups should be more concerned about and not dump on the students. Yeah.

Jaspal Singh ([01:15:55]):

No, I fully agree. I saw one organization and they did that to cost save 25 year back they stopped hiring for five year. And nobody realized the impact of that hiring for five year because 25 year later they didn’t have anybody with experience range. So they either had more senior people who are about to retire and they had very junior people. So they feel like now who will fill that gap? So like you said, we are not realizing the short-term benefit today that how can it’ll impact if we don’t have a junior consultant, we’ll not have people who gain experience over the period of time and become a senior consultant and do that. And it’ll be very powerful.

Now this is my last question, but looking ahead 10-15 years, what do you think will fundamentally change in urban mobility? Are we underestimating autonomous vehicle and AI or we are overestimating?

What do you feel? Like you said, you’re worried. So I want to understand what’s your worry level?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:17:00]):

Worry is something you should research or something you can address. It’s a big waste to worry about things you can’t address. Well, it’s not as easy as that, but still no, I would say it’s harder than ever. I think I was just deterred by the newspaper here because they came up with my predictions 10 years ago and said that you were mostly – Yeah, 2016. You were mostly right, but what do you think now?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:17:33]):

And I said it’s much harder this time. It’s much harder this time. And it’s AI. It makes it harder. The speed is hard to predict because it’s so exponential. This is a system in the world that actually develops itself. It can solve its own problems in an increasing better way than we can solve them. And that’s hard to predict how fast that’s going to go. But still things that are going slow are still going to go slow. Population development is still going to be very predictable. And big investments is going to be predictable. So the big investments we made in infrastructure, it’s going to follow that path. I think land is not being made anymore. So we have what we have. You have to look for those things that are moving in a slow pace and see what impact is this slow pace still going to have on development.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:18:38]):

And then you’re going to look for the things that are going to move fast, like technology. So if you look at public transport, you see that things that are based on big investments, lack of land, like metro systems and rail and things like that. As long as you’re going to move people and you have little land and you have little time to do it, some of these technologies has not been challenged really. You can’t do that with the autonomous taxis. You can’t replace a train. So unless you have another technology that we haven’t seen yet that can do it, I think we are still going to see all these heavy capacity structures. So I think a lot of it has to do with how we implement these new technology in these structures, creating better customer services, better services for the customer. And we’ve been covering that, seeing how could we create shared autonomous transport that are data-driven and comes closer to given the impression of having access to a transport system.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:19:46]):

People don’t buy a car because they want to drive with it. They only do it 5% of the time. They buy it because they can drive with it. They have access to driving and to the freedom of mobility they have when they actually have access to a car. So that is what we need to replicate to become a better and more public transport system that means meet these needs in a better and more sustainable way than producing more cars that people buy and not use and park.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:20:21]):

So I think hopefully we’ll be better at doing that and that we can keep the inner parts of the cities and the surroundings to ourselves instead of infrastructure and concrete and moving objects at high speed that will be dangerous. And even though they’re electric and non-polluting, they still take up space that could be used better. And I’m optimistic about that. I think that technologies will give us better cities because that’s really the target. More livable and more sustainable cities where you could actually have more feeling of freedom to move instead of less. And doing so, I think it’s achievable without overspending the resources that we have on this planet as long as we can… And I will say that if we travel together when we can and alone only when we have to, we will achieve much.

Jaspal Singh ([01:21:22]):

That’s true. That’s so true. That’s so true. It’ll solve a lot of problem. And in fact, recently there’s a study came which say if US city want to develop public infrastructure like a public transport infrastructure like Europe, they need to spend around $4.9 trillion. So a lot of times city don’t realize the real benefit of these infrastructure. And like you said, you can’t move so many people by road. So you have to have rail in some of the infrastructure and these rails can really help to make this happen, these public infrastructure and making better city.

Bernt , thank you so much. I didn’t realize we spent so much of time and it was such a great conversation. I can keep talking to you for hours and get a lot of knowledge. Generally, we end this podcast with a rapid fire round and have some question for you.

So let me know if you’re ready for that.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:22:09]):

Cool.

Jaspal Singh ([01:22:10]):

Okay. So let’s say if you’re not in the logistic and transportation sector, what would you be doing?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:22:18]):

That was a hard question because if I had an answer to that, I probably would’ve left. Why should I?

Jaspal Singh ([01:22:26]):

That’s so true.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:22:28]):

I think it would be in an industry where that means something to people, which I always have chosen. But right now I’m having so much fun, so why should I even think of it?

Jaspal Singh ([01:22:42]):

That’s great. No, we want you to be in the sector and keep sharing your experience and knowledge with us. Now, I know you can be biased. I mean, Oslo is one of the wonderful city, but which is your favorite city in the world and why?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:22:55]):

I love to spend time in nature and even in Svalbard  in the Arctic nature where you’re absolutely alone and only together with polar bears. But when you ask city, it’d have to be in New York City. It’s the city above cities. It’s so much city as a city can be. That’s true. And even has a special sound when you get there. But then again, there are so many in lovely cities. I would say I recently went to Las Vegas, Sydney, which is close to the ocean, beautiful beaches. Of course, Oslo, like you said, has a lot of qualities. If you go to any city, you find qualities. Most of them are unique in one way and the people that live there find and load these qualities and it’s up to us to be curious enough to find them.

Jaspal Singh ([01:23:43]):

That’s true. That’s so true. I mean, you need to be curious enough to find what make that city unique and different. Now, a book or idea that has influenced your thinking, any book or idea you really admire and really helped you?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:23:58]):

I would say normally I would say that people inspire me more than books. I’m not a big reader of piles of management books. There’s a lot of fights. I have money in my back.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:24:09]):

Yes. And I sometimes feel even in some sort of a bad conscious because I don’t read them all. I think I’m more sort of a media type of guy. But most of all, acting together with people in conversation with people, I always learn a lot. Be curious of what people have done, thinking new ways about stories they have told me, looking at the technologies and what could be the second version of this technology. What would happen if you apply this in another way than currently be done? This way of thinking I think have inspired me the most by trying to see new applications or see what might happen in the future. But first and foremost, if I were to sit in that room where there was only a screen and a book I would have achieved nothing of whatever happened, it’s the people that has, that’s the glory of teamwork and inspiration from other people that in my world creates wonders.

Jaspal Singh ([01:25:27]):

No, it is always wonderful. This conversation, I learned a lot, which I can’t get in a book. One thing do you wish you should have learned early in life?

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:25:38]):

I think I just answered that a few minutes ago and that’s faster.

Jaspal Singh ([01:25:44]):

Faster.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:25:45]):

Yeah. It might create more mistakes, but the benefit you get from doing the better things faster I think will overshadow that. I think the world need good decisions to be taken faster and of course avoid some of them that are really bad. And in the world right now out there, there is a lot of I would say possibilities.

Jaspal Singh ([01:26:20]):

Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. That’s true. We need to take more decision. If you can just keep thinking, then you will never take a decision. Now this is my last question. If you can change one thing in life, what would it be?

 

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:26:35]):

Well, that’s a question I never think about because it’s easy to say the peace on earth and things like that. Especially these days, I would say there’s so many things I wish humanity would do differently. So there’s an endless role of things. It’s hard to find the winner. There’s too many options that should have been undone and should have been changed. But I think now if you all take more responsibility for what we do, if I can inspire people to engage in things that should be changed, I could be better.

Jaspal Singh ([01:27:26]):

That’s So powerful

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:27:26]):

I think that’s an aspect. I’ve done more of that in my later years than I did in my first years as a manager and I never get those years back.

Jaspal Singh ([01:27:40]):

That’s true. Once time is gone, it never come back. And then you realize like, okay. No, but that’s very powerful when you said if we all start taking more responsibility for our action in every possible way that can actually make the world better instead of questioning others and pointing at other. It start from us.

Thank you so much, Bernt . It’s really great insight. I mean, I didn’t realize the time we spent more than 90 minutes in this conversation and I didn’t feel, I said like we just started. So really wonderful to have this conversation with you and really wish you good luck with all the key initiative you’re having.

Bernt Reitan Jenssen ([01:28:17]):

It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Jaspal Singh ([01:28:19]):

Thank you for listening to this podcast. If you like this episode, please don’t forget to give us a five-star rating as it’ll help us to spread our message. If you have any feedback or suggestion for this podcast, please feel free to reach out to us at info@mobility-innovators.com. I look forward to see you next time. Thank you.