Well here I am in Sydney installing a computer system into a large Australian Transport company: The Patrick Group. The trucks might be massive and the distances vast but when it comes to running the company everything is remarkably similar to home. Apart from the Aussie accent and the fact that there isn't a suit in sight it's the same job. The priorities in the Patrick organisation are exactly the same as the priorities in many large transport organisations in the UK or, the rest of the world in fact. Get more efficient, get more automated and get smarter.

The Patrick Group is a Port and Container Company but they own about 30 transport companies. Up till now each transport company worked on its own as an individual organisation. I am installing one Roadrunner transport system for the whole Patrick group. The idea is that if all the transport companies are using the same computer system then they will be able to work with each other and share their resources. There will be 250 users on one IBM computer in 30 different transport companies all working together sharing trucks, trailers, drivers and customers. All the trucks will be fitted with onboard computers and all of the customers will have web access to keep track of their work and get online POD conformation. It's going to be very slick and very modern and it's going to make life very difficult for Patrick's competitors.

The fact is that there is a big move in the transport industry towards closer cooperation between operators and it's a worldwide move. Whether it's Jigsaw type cooperation's in the UK or company wide consolidation in organisations like Patrick in Australia the change is happening. It's the customers who are driving transport operators to work more closely with each other. The customers get the benefit of more efficiency and it's the customers who are insisting on more visibility of their work. The Internet is just a very large computer network and it's the obvious choice of communication to enable companies to work with each other and keep customers up to date.

It just makes so much sense to simply use the biggest computer network in the world (The Internet) to provide exactly what the paying customers want (visibility) and work more efficiently with other transport companies (cooperation).

The UK transport industry is leading the way with this new technology and that's good news, when all said and done it is our systems that the Australians are importing so apart from shaking out my boots and checking under toilet seats I'm beginning to feel very much at home here down under.