New UITP president backs people-first approach to AI

Gautier Brodeo takes on the presidency of UITP, the international association of public transport, at a moment of significant change for public transport systems worldwide.

Following Renée Amilcar’s decision to step down after her appointment as Chief Executive Officer and President of Mobilité Infra Québec, Brodeo inherits an organisation focused on people, equity and long-term sustainability.

In one of his first interviews since taking the helm, Brodeo tells Cities Today how he plans to navigate workforce shortages, digitalisation and AI, funding uncertainty and the governance challenges of multimodal integration.

Public transport may be built from infrastructure, systems and technology, but Gautier Brodeo insists it succeeds or fails on human terms. His presidency of UITP will be shaped by the belief that strategy, operations and innovation only matter if they improve daily journeys for passengers and support the people who deliver them.

UITP’s 2025–28 Strategic Plan formally places people at the heart of the organisation’s mission. For Brodeo, the task is ensuring that principle translates into practice. Internally, this means strengthening collaboration across the organisation and empowering teams to deliver the strategy with clarity and purpose. Externally, it means ensuring UITP remains grounded in the operational realities faced by its members across very different cities and regions.

That focus reflects Brodeo’s own professional background. As Director of the Operation and Maintenance Development Agency at RATP Group, he brings more than 25 years of experience in public transport, alongside a career that has spanned operational management, senior advisory roles and long-term asset strategy.

Within UITP, he has served as Deputy President, Chair of the Metro Division and a member of the Executive Board, as well as contributing for more than a decade as an expert on urban and suburban rail. For Brodeo, that experience reinforces the importance of UITP as a member-led organisation.

“We must also continue supporting our members with practical tools, knowledge and advocacy that reflect the real challenges they face on the ground in their cities and regions,” he explains. “I want UITP to be an even more welcoming and inclusive global community. We’re a member-focused association, so we must advocate for the diverse voices who work towards shaping the future of urban mobility.”

Digitalisation as an enabler, not a goal

Digitalisation and emerging technologies such as AI sit high on Brodeo’s agenda, but he is careful to frame them as enablers rather than solutions in their own right. Technology, he argues, must simplify operations and improve journeys, not introduce unnecessary complexity.

“The passenger is entitled to the smoothest journey possible, and any digital development should complement their daily movement,” he says.

A central concern is ensuring that digital transformation does not widen the gap between well-resourced and less-resourced agencies. Brodeo believes UITP has a critical role to play in promoting open standards, supporting capacity-building and creating peer-learning platforms that allow agencies facing similar constraints to learn from one another.

“Sometimes small steps, with improved data governance and streamlined processes, can have a bigger impact than expensive overhauls,” he says. “Our goal is to ensure that technology is never a barrier to progress, but a development that ultimately serves the passenger and improves their journey.”

For Brodeo, maintaining the human dimension of public transport is non-negotiable, even as systems become more data-driven and automated.

“The human factor must always remain and for us to make sure that any technological development increases the positive impact for people,” he says.

Resilience, funding and long-term vision

Operational resilience is another defining challenge he highlights, particularly as workforce shortages, digital change and asset renewal increasingly converge.

“Resilience today requires a balanced approach: supporting people, strengthening systems and embracing innovation,” he adds.

While workforce shortages extend beyond the public transport sector, Brodeo sees clear value in UITP helping members share practical experience on recruitment, training, diversity and retention, especially for frontline roles.

He points to examples from Colombia, where women are increasingly visible in leadership and operational positions within bus companies, as evidence of progress that can be accelerated through shared learning.

Asset renewal presents a parallel long-term challenge. Brodeo believes UITP is well placed to convene operators, authorities and industry to encourage lifecycle investment and planning measured in decades rather than budget cycles. As digital systems become more deeply embedded in operations, he also stresses the importance of cyber security evolving in step.

“As digital transformations develop, we must make sure that cyber security develops alongside it,” he says. “As we become more and more digital, a smooth and secure cyber world is very important.”

Influencing national and regional governments is another priority. Brodeo argues that public transport has not always received sustained political attention, despite its contribution to economic vitality, social inclusion and environmental sustainability.

“Politics changes, but public transport is a long-term vision for our cities,” he explains. “When we develop public transport infrastructure, this is for life, so we need to encourage multi-year programmes and long-term vision from those in decision-making roles.”

He points to the scale of public transport’s contribution in Europe alone, where almost 60 billion passenger journeys are delivered each year and every euro of value created generates a further four euros elsewhere in the economy. For Brodeo, these figures reinforce the case for stable, multi-year funding frameworks that enable long-term planning.

Multimodal integration is another theme shaped by his experience across UITP’s divisions. Passengers, he believes, should experience transport systems as coherent networks rather than disconnected modes, with walking and cycling treated as natural partners to public transport.

“Multimodal integration is essentially not a technical challenge, it’s more about governance,” he reasons. “When authorities and operators coordinate around shared goals, integration becomes almost natural.”

Drawing on his operational background at RATP, Brodeo repeatedly returns to fundamentals. Reliable service, he argues, depends on disciplined maintenance, skilled teams and well-managed interfaces between operations, maintenance and projects.

“The devil is in the interfaces,” he says. “And interfaces are more about people than technology … People first! Integrate operation, maintenance, project helps to reduce it.”

He closes by returning to the idea of public transport as a collective endeavour rooted in collaboration and shared learning.

“Public transport is a community, and nobody emphasises that more than UITP,” he says. “Public transport succeeds when we advance collaboration and remain open to learning from each other.”

Images: UITP