Phil Bullock

Phil leads NineSquared’s Sydney office and brings over 20-years of public and private sector experience in transport and infrastructure planning to the firm. Phil has extensive experience leading public policy projects and specialist expertise in transport and freight and logistics. Phil also has broader expertise in governance and regulatory reform, regulatory impact assessments and business case development. 

Phil’s experience includes senior roles at Transport for NSW where he successfully led people and projects in diverse settings including supporting infrastructure projects and programs and leading governance and funding reform initiatives. This included leading freight policy and regulatory reform projects, implementing reforms to the agency’s business intelligence function and establishing governance to ensure a more consistent approach to common planning assumptions for infrastructure planning across NSW government agencies. 

Phil has also held various senior advisory roles in Deloitte, Saha International and AECOM where he led projects across Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom. 

Select Project Experience

• Victorian Freight Plan – Phil led the engagement to provide advisory support for the development of a refreshed Victorian Freight Plan. This involved collaborating closely with DTP to develop goals and objectives for the updated plan, proposing data-driven KPIs to measure success, and identifying a range of actionable strategies for inclusion in the plan. 
• Rail sector reforms – Phil led various projects on behalf of the National Transport Commission (NTC) to develop reform options for the Australian rail industry. This included advice on an interoperability governance, developing reforms for rolling stock approval processes and evaluating the benefits of harmonising rolling stock components.  
• Advice on container freight issues – Phil led independent reviews of the empty container supply chains in NSW and Victoria and supported establishing the Voluntary Port Performance Model for the Port of Melbourne container supply chain. He has also provided expert witness advice on a dispute affecting a major Australian freight business. 
• Statutory Review of the National Transport Commission – Phil led the 2021 statutory review of the National Transport Commission (NTC). The Review evaluated the operational effectiveness of the NTC, the role that the NTC plays in the national reform environment, its relationships with jurisdictions and future work priorities and governance arrangements. 
• Western Sydney Freight Line and IMT Economic Analysis – Phil led the team engaged by Transport for NSW to assess the economic impact of a freight line and intermodal freight terminal (IMT) in Western Sydney. The project involved forecasting future freight demand and estimating the economic benefits of shifting freight from road to rail. 
• Container Port Problem Monetisation – Phil led work for a major Australian port operator to conduct an independent economic assessment of its capacity expansion plans. 
• Regulatory Impact Statement – Phil assisted the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator to develop a Regulatory Impact Statement for a policy to mandate in-cab video and audio safety recording devices in Australian trains to improve available information relating to the driver and crew in the event of an incident. 
• NSW Population Projections and Review of the Economics, Planning and Land Use Analytics Team – Phil has led various projects by the Department of Planning and Environment (now Department of Housing and Infrastructure) including assisting with the finalisation and release the 2019 NSW Population Projections and reviewing the Department’s data analytics function.