Australia’s transport sector is evolving fast. Fleet operators, infrastructure owners, and logistics providers are under pressure to improve safety, efficiency, and service reliability while managing complex supply chains and a shrinking talent pool. The question for many is how to modernise without disrupting critical operations.
Forward-thinking organisations like Transurban and Western Sydney International Airport are answering that challenge with Workday, a single AI-powered platform that unifies finance, HR, planning, and spend management to give transport leaders real-time insight, trusted data, and the agility to make faster, smarter decisions.
A platform built for scale and complexity
When Transurban expanded across Australia and North America, it needed a cloud-based system that could scale with growth and unify its people and finance data. Legacy systems could not provide the agility or insight required to manage a large, asset-intensive business.
By choosing Workday, Transurban brought multiple business functions onto one platform, reducing manual reporting, improving workforce visibility, and creating a stronger foundation for decision-making. Today, Workday supports Transurban’s finance and people teams across regions, helping align strategic planning with day-to-day operations.
For Western Sydney International Airport (Nancy-Bird Walton), Workday offered a different advantage: speed and flexibility from the ground up. As a new organisation building for long-term sustainability, WSI wanted modern systems that could grow with it. Workday was selected to deploy finance, HR, planning, and sourcing solutions in record time, helping the airport establish transparent governance and efficient operations before its first flight takes off.
Why leaders choose Workday
What unites these organisations is the need for a single source of truth, a system that connects financial performance, workforce capability, and operational priorities. Workday’s platform eliminates data silos, giving leaders real-time insights into costs, capacity, and compliance.
Visibility is crucial in transport, where a missed certification, a delayed part, or an unplanned absence can impact performance. With Workday, leaders can anticipate issues before they escalate, whether it’s a skills shortage, a cost overrun, or an emerging compliance risk.
Retaining skilled workers is also one of the biggest challenges facing the transport industry. Long hours, complex compliance requirements, and an ageing workforce mean engagement and retention cannot be afterthoughts. Workday helps operators deliver a better employee experience, from onboarding and certification tracking to mobile access for learning, timesheets, and performance reviews, so frontline workers spend less time on admin and more time on the road.
AI with accountability
AI is also transforming how the transport industry operates, from route optimisation to predictive maintenance. Workday’s AI capabilities extend those efficiencies to the back office.
Rather than replacing people, Workday’s AI augments them, automating routine tasks and surfacing insights that help teams work smarter. It can forecast overtime costs, recommend learning for at-risk skills, and model “what if” scenarios to test operational resilience.
Workday’s skills intelligence, powered by the Workday Skills Cloud, helps transport leaders understand what skills they have across their workforce and what they’ll need next. This allows them to redeploy talent, plan training, and bridge gaps before they impact operations.
Recent Workday research shows 83 per cent of business leaders believe AI will enhance creativity and value when used responsibly. For a sector where safety and compliance are non-negotiable, trust and transparency are essential, and that’s built into Workday’s design.
Built for change
Whether managing a toll road network, building an airport, or coordinating freight operations, agility is critical. Workday’s configurable workflows allow transport organisations to adapt quickly to new safety requirements, industrial changes, or reporting needs, without long upgrade cycles or complex re-coding.
With real-time reporting and audit-ready data, businesses can stay ahead of evolving safety and labour regulations, ensuring compliance without slowing down operations.
And because all data lives on a single platform, every change, from workforce planning to procurement, can be tracked and audited, reinforcing trust with regulators, investors, and employees alike.
Keeping Australia moving
From Transurban’s integrated finance and workforce platform to Western Sydney Airport’s greenfield rollout, Workday is helping Australia’s transport and logistics leaders connect people, performance, and purpose.
As the industry embraces AI and data-driven decision-making, one principle remains constant: the future of transport runs on trusted systems and empowered people.
Workday is helping deliver both, ensuring that Australia and the people who power it move forward.