Michael Habouri: The Shift From Transit Assets to Integrated Operating Systems
Updated: Aug 28
I spoke with Michael Habouri, Vice President of Transit, Bus and Fleet at WSP Canada, where he leads multidisciplinary teams supporting transit authorities and fleet operators across planning, design, engineering, systems integration and project delivery. With more than 19 years of experience across automotive, e-mobility, energy and transportation, Michael brings experience spanning both the technical and commercial sides of the industry. We discussed the evolution of transit operations, fleet electrification, funding and policy, changing ridership patterns, project delivery models, industry collaboration, and the practical role of AI in public transportation.
Tell me about WSP’s transit, bus and fleet practice, your work across North America, and the types of organizations and projects that you support.
The transit, bus and fleet practice is a brand-new team that I was mandated to build from scratch. I’ve been in the role for about 14 months. At a high level, the practice is built around three technical pillars. The first is anything related to fleets and vehicles. The second is infrastructure and buildings. The third is energy, fueling or charging.
Across North America, we support transit agencies, municipalities, and public and private fleet operators across the full life cycle. We start with advisory and planning. Once they have an idea of where they want to go, we help build the strategy and business case. When they are able to secure funding through those plans, we can support them through design and delivery, including procurement, implementation, commissioning and operations.
That can include route analysis, fleet and technology transition plans, life-cycle costs, emissions modelling, funding strategies and program road maps. Within our team, we have expertise in modelling, design and financing, along with mechanical, electrical and civil engineers and project managers who have worked in these environments and led large transit projects.
WSP has historically been very involved in this market, particularly in the initial planning and advisory stages. It has also been very successful on the infrastructure and garage side, including the design of new facilities and upgrades to existing garages and depots so they can accommodate new technologies, chargers and battery-electric buses. What I have brought is an extension of that capability so we can cover the full life cycle, including training, fire safety assessments, engineering and delivery.
Tell me about your own journey to becoming Vice President, Transit, Bus and Fleet at WSP, and how your experience has shaped the way you look at the transit sector.
My path into transit was not a straight line. I have always tried to put myself outside of my comfort zone and into situations where I could grow. That has been a systematic approach throughout my career.
I am a mechanical engineer by trade and specialized in manufacturing and design. I always thought I would end up in transportation. My brother was at Bombardier, my cousin was there, and I thought I might go into aerospace. Instead, I landed at ABB because the role attracted me. It was called marketing engineer and combined technical sales, marketing and proposals, which I really enjoyed.
The first half of my career at ABB was focused on utilities and commercial and industrial markets. During the second half, I focused mainly on the passenger rail market across North America. I started visiting transit authorities and car builders, and that is really where I got the bug for rail and transportation.
I then spent four years at Andritz, working with turbines and generators for hydroelectric utilities across Canada. After that, I moved to Schneider Electric, where I was responsible for leading the mobility segment. That included automotive customers, ports, airports, transit authorities electrifying their infrastructure, public transit and broader e-mobility infrastructure.
Throughout that journey, I spent a lot of time developing my understanding of systems, products, energy management and automation, as well as the financial, technological and operational challenges transportation operators are going through. I also became involved in industry associations in Canada and with APTA. At WSP, I am now able to bring those perspectives together and support clients from advisory through engineering and delivery.
What do you consider the biggest change happening in public transit today, or the biggest change you expect over the next several years?
I think the biggest change is the shift from replacing individual assets to managing one integrated operating system. Electrification makes that shift visible, but digitization will accelerate it.
In a conventional fleet, the vehicle, the fuel, the facility and the schedule were all managed somewhat separately. In a modern low- or zero-emission fleet, those decisions are tightly coupled, or they will be increasingly tightly coupled in the future.
Over the next several years, I think agencies are also going to become energy managers and data organizations while continuing to be transportation operators. What I am hoping for is that we move more from pilots and isolated procurements toward portfolio-scale programs that integrate these multiple systems and solutions so agencies can improve efficiency and reduce costs.
What do you think agencies, policymakers or other industry stakeholders are getting wrong about the future of public transit?
Too often, there is confusion between a target and an implementation plan, or between a technology choice and a service outcome.
You can establish a target that says we need to achieve full electrification or low emissions by 2040. That creates urgency, which is extremely valuable, but it does not answer the operational questions.
The vehicles and chargers are usually the most visible parts of the transition, while much of the hardest work sits behind them. You need to make sure you have the right power, and sometimes utilities cannot provide it. There can be long lead times, a lot of civil work, commissioning, staff training, equipment safety requirements, spare parts, software and cybersecurity. The list can go on and on.
The other mistake is looking for one universal answer. Routes are different, climates are different, facilities have different constraints, and resiliency needs vary. There is no simple pathway. Transit authorities are discovering this step by step, and they do not necessarily have the full picture from day one. That can completely change the way they need to plan.
Which policy or regulatory issues are having the greatest impact on transit agencies today, and what would you personally like to see change?
The issue I hear most from agencies is not necessarily the policy itself. It is the uncertainty around it.
There are different clocks for funding, procurement, utility support and the delivery of systems and equipment, and usually they do not match. Transit agencies plan assets and service over a decade or longer, while funding programs are usually short-term, competitive and extremely capital-focused.
Procurement and domestic-content policies are also pursuing legitimate economic goals, but the North American bus and component supply chain is very thin. On top of that, solutions are highly customized based on each agency’s preferences.
At the same time, utility interconnections and major facility upgrades can take years, and those timelines are not always properly integrated into transit funding or approval processes.
What I would like to see is more predictable multi-year funding and more flexibility to fund the complete life cycle. We understand that the first focus is often the chargers and vehicles, but facilities are becoming more expensive than people sometimes expect. The digital transition is also complex. Agencies have a lot of data to manage, the workforce has to change, and there is organizational change management involved as well. All of that needs to be considered.
How are changing funding conditions, ridership patterns and agency budget pressures affecting transit planning, and what do you think the longer-term implications will be?
In certain areas, ridership is recovering, but the financial and travel-pattern assumptions behind transit have changed.
Since COVID, hybrid work has reduced the dominance of the traditional commute peak in many markets, while all-day, weekend and cross-town travel matter more now. At the same time, operating costs have risen, and capital funding does not operate the service.
That is putting pressure on agencies to cut frequencies in certain areas, defer maintenance and even keep assets longer. In Canada, for example, we tend to use buses until the end of their life, while in the U.S. mid-life refurbishment is much more common. Those differences also need to be considered over time.
The risk is that you create a negative cycle because frequency is the product. If the service becomes less useful, ridership and revenue can weaken.
Planning therefore needs to become scenario-based and route-specific. Agencies need to go line by line, spend the time understanding all the elements of the environment affecting each route, phase investments properly, and look at life-cycle costs that include not only the vehicles, but also the infrastructure, the workforce and the commitments being made to customers.
Long term, I think the sector needs a more stable operating model, and it has to be rethought. There are significant losses at many transit authorities, and that is an issue. We need to recognize access and economic participation, as well as the climate value, but farebox recovery, clear service standards, and disciplined asset and fleet road maps will also be essential.
As transit becomes more complex, do you see the relationship between agencies and consulting firms changing as well?
I think one way to overcome that complexity is for organizations to be willing to collaborate and turn fragmented experiences into shared evidence. That is something that is still missing.
The historical approach for transit authorities has been to go through competitive RFPs and use a fairly traditional delivery model. If you look at other industries, including rail, you see delivery models where organizations are innovating and trying other approaches where collaboration is key.
This is where a company like WSP, a transit authority, the solution provider and even the general contractor can sit down together and ask how we build the plan needed to achieve the end goal as we move through this transition involving multiple systems and solutions.
We have heard a lot about energy-as-a-service models, and that is one approach the industry has been promoting that could be beneficial. But I am sure there are other approaches as well. We can call it integrated project delivery, progressive design-build, or something else. I think this is where we need to open the discussion within the market.
Which organizations do you think are making the biggest difference in public transit today, and why?
The first ones that stand out are the industry associations. In Canada, that is CUTA, and in the U.S., APTA. They provide agencies with a collective voice and turn local operating experience into policy, guidance and standards.
The second group is applied research and deployment organizations. In Canada, we have CUTRIC, and in the U.S. there is CALSTART. What they are doing is helping move ideas from vendor claims to field evidence.
That is critical because the typical path is often an RFP where someone has to evaluate whether a solution meets the requirements. With applied research and deployment organizations, agencies can see these solutions, test them and better understand how they actually perform.
The third important group is the energy partners, particularly utilities. They are becoming more and more important stakeholders in the transition because they manage the capacity required if we want to electrify.
Where do you see AI having the greatest practical impact on public transit, fleet operations and transportation planning?
I do not believe AI will replace the driver, the mechanic or the planner. The near-term value of AI is operational decision support.
I would break that into two areas. The first is predictive maintenance, which can make life easier for the people working in the shop. The second is operational optimization.
The interesting thing is that agencies do not suffer from a lack of data. They suffer from a lack of actionable insights. They are collecting data from vehicles, chargers, facilities, maintenance systems, customer systems and day-to-day operations, but different people are often responsible for each of those areas.
AI can help connect all of that data and identify patterns that humans would struggle to detect at scale. Again, the point is not to replace employees. It is to empower them and help professionals make better decisions.
The reality is that these solutions already exist in different forms, but we are still operating in a fragmented world. Each asset usually has its own digital platform for visualization and control, and some already have embedded AI to improve the operation of that specific component or system.
The opportunity is to bring those pieces together into what I would call a system of systems. Decision-makers could look across energy and assets, understand the fingerprint of their chargers and buses, see the trends, and then decide what they should be doing to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
We are not there yet, but AI can be the glue that brings all of that to another level.
I’d like to thank Michael for taking the time to share his perspective. His experience across transit, energy, infrastructure and project delivery gives him a broad view of how agencies can navigate increasingly complex operational and technology transitions.
-Adam
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