Digitalisation in Public Transport

Badar Alnadabi is a distinguished executive leader whose career spans nearly three decades of driving transformation, innovation, and sustainable growth across Oman’s public and private sectors. As Chief Executive Officer of Mwasalat Oman, he has been instrumental in advancing the nation’s public transportation ecosystem through strategic leadership, digital transformation, and customer-focused innovation. His expertise extends across business development, finance, marketing, human resources, technology, supply chain, and corporate affairs, enabling him to build high-performing organizations and future-ready teams.

Throughout his career, Badar has held influential leadership and board positions with organizations including ASYAD Group, Oman Post, Port of Duqm, National Ferries Company, and the Diwan of Royal Court. Beyond his executive responsibilities, he serves as Vice Chair of UITP MENA and is the founder of Majalisna and Barndah, reflecting his passion for entrepreneurship, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. Recognized for fostering strong organizational cultures, empowering talent, and leading impactful change, he continues to shape the future of mobility and business excellence in the region.

Khaled Shammout is a transit professional with more than 28 years of experience in public transit planning, advanced data collection and analysis, strategic planning, transit operations, ITS technology, and transit facilities design and construction.  Mr. Shammout has extensive experience in both the public and private sectors; he also brings international experience.

Mr. Shammout currently serves as the Chief Strategic Planning, Development, and Innovation Officer at the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (Cincinnati, Ohio).  Mr. Shammout attended The Ohio State University where he earned BS in Architecture, a Master’s in City Planning, and a Master’s in Transportation Engineering.

Mr. Shammout has published a recent book: “The Implosion of Public Transit and the Case for an Infinite Game”.

Victoria Markewitz is part of the global Business Development team of INIT, based in Berlin. She is responsible for go-to-market strategies, innovation scouting and building a network of public transit frontrunners.

Prior to INIT, Victoria was responsible for driving the launch of Via’s and Citymapper’s partnerships with European and Middle Eastern public transport operators and cities and worked as a management consultant for Roland Berger in the Transportation Competence Center, both in Germany and the Middle East, to consult clients on innovative mobility solutions and strategies.

Additionally, Victoria is the Chair of UITP’s Combined Mobility Committee and Policy Board member since 2023.

Victoria graduated from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management with a Bachelor degree in Business Administration and a Master in Management degree.

Dr. Dheeraj Bhardwaj is a senior mobility, public transport and digital transformation executive with over 30 years of international leadership experience across the Middle East, UK, USA and India. He is Vice Chair – Board at Door2Door Mobility Holding and Founder of Sentient Cities. Previously, he served as Group CEO of City Group Kuwait, where he led the transformation of CityBus and co-founded Citylink Shuttle, an on-demand bus / DRT service operating across Kuwait, Dubai and Saudi Arabia, powered by the door2door platform. His experience spans public transport operations, digital ticketing, demand responsive transport, shared mobility, strategy consulting, innovation and technology-led transformation. Earlier, he held senior roles with PwC, Laing O’Rourke, Arabtec and Imperial Innovations. He holds a PhD in Computing Science from IIT Delhi, an MBA from Imperial College London, and is a recipient of the INSA Young Scientist Medal.

Emre KIRAN based in Brussels at UITP Headquarters working as Head of UITP Academy. He has a global responsibility for Public Transport Trainings and increasing the efficiency of the trainings.

Mr Kıran worked as Head of Strategic Marketing Manager and led the Pricing, product management of Caterpillar and based in Istanbul Borusan Headquarter in his previous job.

M.Emre Kıran involved several projects when he was a Lean 6 Sigma Blackbelt like Global Parts Pricing Strategy, Efficiency in Fleet Management and Logistics optimisation in Europe-Asia Regions. Kıran has lectured service quality, process management and marketing in many different Caterpillar dealers’ territories. He has more than 13 years of experience in management, training and business development.

Muhammed Emre Kıran has graduated Industrial Engineering in Istanbul Technical University and completed postgraduate programme of “Leadership and Management” in Sabancı University. He also holds a Lean 6 Sigma black belt Certificate after finishing the Lean management in BMGI University, USA and Lean Six Sigma in CAT University, France.