Inside Steer: Conversations with Experts Ep. 2 | Masroor Hasan

Welcome to ‘Inside Steer’ a video series in which we get to know some of the leading voices from across Steer’s North America business. Here we’ll get industry insights, career highlights and a long view on the sectors that matter most for our clients.

It has been almost 30 years since Steer Senior Vice President Masroor Hasan moved to Boston and began his career in consulting, but the last five years has seen some of the biggest changes to his sector of rail.

The pandemic saw a dramatic drop in passenger numbers across the board, but the years since have seen a reconfiguration of travel patterns previously unseen in the industry. 

Stable numbers of peak time commuters have been wiped away by homeworking and replaced with a much more dynamic landscape of travel throughout the day and week for both work and leisure. 

This reconfiguration, along with delays of federal funding, are a challenge for rail in the US but the sector is rising to the occasion. 

The increased use of public-private partnerships (P3s) has emerged as a funding solution with private entities entering the market in larger numbers, while Masroor encourages clients to take advantage of rapidly evolving methods of data collection to understand the changing face of ridership. Meanwhile, business cases have taken on a new significance in a world where every penny of rail investment counts. 

Many industry players, however, are responding to these conditions well and after three decades in the industry though, Masroor thinks the picture looks bright. 

“There is a lot more focus on rail and transit than when I started my career when I came to the US,” says Masroor. 

“That is exciting in terms of more and more private sector entities coming into the picture, more and more services coming into the picture and more and more improvements in passenger rail services. 

“What we have been seeing in Europe…there are some positive signs we are on our way to those kinds of services. Five, 10 or 15 years from now hopefully we’ll have a passenger rail system to be proud of.”