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Case Study: Odie Agent for TfNSW

How Odie, the Open Data Hub Helpdesk Agent​, helps users find and access their data and reduces customer support time

Executive Summary

Transport for NSW (TfNSW) manages one of the largest fleets of vehicles in Australia, including buses, ferries, light rail, trains, and metro.The Open Data Hub is a website where the NSW Government provides access to public transport information that can be accessed, used, modified, and shared by the community. This enables innovation and the creation of new projects using Transport data.Data-Driven partnered with TfNSW to deliver “Odie” – The Open Data Bot – to help the general public find the transport data they are looking for in a quicker, friendlier way, while reducing support costs and manual effort for the TfNSW team.
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“The Open Data Hub needed a solution to help data users navigate the Open Data Hub website and easily find, view and use transport public data. This solution just gives us that, so that we can understand how our users are searching for data and improve our services.”

Yvonne Lee
Program Manager, Open Data Hub, TfNSW

Challenges

Improving Access and Usability of Transport Open Data

Transport for NSW’s objective was to improve the way data consumers could find, understand, and use the public transport data published on the Open Data Hub.One of the main challenges was that the datasets were disparate, inconsistently named, and sometimes difficult to locate. This made it frustrating for data consumers and led to potential missed opportunities for innovation.In addition, the API registration process had been a source of frustration for users, increasing the time and effort required from support staff to answer even simple questions that users could not easily find on the website.

The Solution

Conversational AI Platform for Streamlined Customer Interactions

Odie is an interactive, conversational bot embedded in the Open Data Hub website acting as the first line of interaction between users, the business and the public available data.Odie welcomes new users, answers frequent support queries and can understands misspelt words and phrases using Natural Language Understanding, which results in a higher search result accuracy than the previous search functionality on the website.The Support team can easily manage and add questions and answer to help Odie to best assist users. Odie is a reliable, scalable and cost-effective solution for lowering support costs and improving the support user experience.
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Key Business Outcomes

Key Outcomes Achieved with Odie Bot
Facilitate Seamless Live Communication

Odie welcomes visitors to the Open Data Hub website and assists with the most common queries. Odie guides the user to help them find what they are looking for and can surface lesser-known datasets that were previously buried behind search screens.

Make Customer Service Available 24/7

Odie is available 24*7 to answer questions which reduces the response time to users, which in turn reduces frustration and user-drop off. Connecting users with the right data results in a higher degree of innovation and higher quality transport products.

Get Constant Improvement Over Time Get Constant Improvement Over Time

Odie sends reports providing insights to the Open Data team helping them understand common requests and train Odie to be more useful. This results in less manual support time needed and reduces the operating costs of the team.

Significant reduction in support queries by providing users instant answers through a virtual agent. Improved user experience for public data consumers, enabling faster access to datasets. Enhanced insights into user search behavior, allowing TfNSW to optimize data presentation and accessibility. Scalable and cost-effective support solution that reduces manual effort for internal teams.

“The Odie Bot Agent has changed how users engage with transport data in NSW. By combining conversational AI with user-centric design, we’ve created a scalable, always-on solution that not only reduces support overhead but also empowers innovation by making public datasets easier to find and use. And we won the TfNSW Innovation Challenge whilst building it ;)”

Rodney Joyce
Rodney Joyce Solutions Architect, Agentic AI
About transport for NSW

The Technical Solution

Odie is an interactive, conversational bot built using Natural Language Understanding to understand user queries, including misspelt words and varied phrasing. The bot is integrated into the Open Data Hub website to act as the first point of contact for users seeking public transport data. Odie’s backend allows the support team to easily add and update questions and answers, ensuring the bot stays current and relevant. By leveraging AI and automation, Odie provides accurate, real-time guidance to users while reducing the operational load on TfNSW support staff.

Transport for NSW (TfNSW)

Transport_for_NSW_logo.
Transport for NSW is a government run enterprise responsible for the delivering and development of safe, integrated and efficient transport systems for the people of NSW; including transport planning, strategy, policy, procurement and other non-service delivery functions across all modes of transport: Buses, Ferries, Light Rail, Trains and Metro. NSW Transport works hand-in-hand with operating agencies, private operators and industry partners to deliver customer-focused services and projects in order to make NSW a better place to live, work and visit.

Government

Transportation

NSW, Australia

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