Transport for New South Wales (NSW) in Australia has selected Amazon’s Cloud-based voice service, Alexa, to provide voice-activated information to its commuters.

Alexa is integrated with the company’ Echo, Echo Plus and Echo Dot devices and is expected to offer real-time train, ferry and light rail arrival information gathered from Transport for NSW’s Real-time Intelligent Transport Assistant (RITA).

RITA was initially launched in September last year and is available via Facebook Messenger and Google Assistant.

"We recognise that the information landscape is shifting towards voice services, which is why we have been so quick to adopt and innovate in this space."

Transport for NSW Customer Services deputy secretary Tony Braxton-Smith said: “We recognise that the information landscape is shifting towards voice services, which is why we have been so quick to adopt and innovate in this space.

“We see RITA’s transport service disruption information as a perfect match with Alexa.”

The new solution is intended to provide commuters with up-to-date, voice-based information regarding network updates and service disruptions on the daily Sydney Trains, Sydney Ferries and Inner West Light Rail journeys.

Customers will be able to activate the Alexa’s RITA component by enabling the feature in the Amazon Alexa app on their respective smartphones.

Braxton-Smith added: “In NSW, we know transport is no longer just about building infrastructure and running services, but embracing new technology to provide the best services for our customers.

“RITA began as an interactive Chatbot on Facebook Messenger. Now, RITA has evolved to become an essential component of digital assistant products like Alexa.”

The integration of Amazon Alexa forms part of Transport for NSW’s wider plan to promote the digitalisation of rail services.