Keyur Shah, senior director for Gartner, Inc., has worked with more than 45 transportation clients during his 15-year career as he helps his clients navigate and adapt to changing technology expectations and industry disruptions. He leads Gartner’s transportation practice, where he combines his passion for transportation and technology to help clients solve mission critical challenges through improving their processes and using new and updated technologies.
Shah’s work has helped numerous agencies leverage technology to improve and automate their business processes as they manage a large number of infrastructure assets. Throughout his career, Shah has been forward thinking in his approach to help agencies with this transition and has developed tailormade tools and frameworks that address agencies’ needs and challenges. For example, last year, he oversaw the development of a lifecycle analysis tool to help agencies forecast capital investment needs, which provided a decision-making tool to meet a requirement of the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Final Rule for Transit Asset Management (TAM). This tool incorporated specific asset replacement and capital activities and was improved upon similar tools available in the marketplace.
Shah has been at the forefront of asset management conversations at the national level, helping to shape the asset management approach to help transit agencies minimize disruptions to service, maximize constrained resources and reduce safety risk. He was one of the primary authors of the FTA’s Transit Asset Management Guide, which was developed in response to an increase in the transit industry’s state of good repair backlog (the current backlog estimate is $89.8 billion) and the need to achieve and maintain a state of good repair for the nation’s public transportation assets. The guide incorporates industry best practice to help agencies develop an enterprise asset management framework to improve asset data collection and inform better decision-making to make the most of funding constraints.
In addition, he has contributed his thought leadership to multiple other publications at the state and federal levels. These include NCHRP 08-36 Transportation Asset Management for Ancillary Assets and two guides developed for the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Addressing Challenges and Return on Investment (ROI) for Paperless Project Delivery (e-Construction), and Implementation of Electronic Right-of-Way Management Systems Versus Paper Systems. What has made Shah so successful is his ability to thoughtfully apply his technical knowledge and adapt his skills to the challenges that his clients and the industry are facing. His depth and breadth of knowledge of the transit industry (and the broader transportation industry), combined with his soft skills to foster relationships with clients, his experience managing complex projects, and his demonstrated leadership has led to continued success in his career.
Shah recognizes the impact his mentors had on his career and actively pays it forward by mentoring and developing junior staff to become future leaders in the transit industry. He ensures junior staff have the support and sponsorship needed for growth and advancement and for success in their careers to make impactful contributions to the transit and transportation industry.
“Public transit plays a critical role in reducing congestion, improving the commute experience and providing affordable transportation opportunities to people from all walks of life. Making impactful contributions to this industry and helping to make a difference gives me great pride and satisfaction.”
