April 2026
“As an industry, we should be looking for more opportunities to; collaborate, share insights and enhance our service offering, which ultimately benefits the communities we live in. Transport Professionals Australia has been a wonderful conduit for enabling this, and, as a Leadership Partner, I look forward to providing a mechanism to expand on this further in the transport modelling sphere in the years to come”
Trent Ekanayake
Managing Director, Clarity Consult
Managing Director, Clarity Mobility (PTV Strategic Partner for ANZ)
Tell us about Clarity and why you started it?
We set up Clarity exactly 5 years ago in April 2021 as a dedicated transport modelling firm, driven by a desire to improve transport modelling practice and frustrated with the lack of innovation in the industry. Observing the same challenges arise on every project with nothing being done to change this seemed unsustainable (think Einstein’s definition of insanity). So, we were determined to better explore these pain points and develop alternate frameworks to improve how our industry delivers solutions.
Having worked at many large consultancies prior to setting up Clarity, I know innovation can often be hemmed in by short-term financial targets. So, decoupled from pure financial budgets, Clarity was set up to provide modellers with the freedom to; explore, deploy and optimise emerging areas of modelling – working to enhance what we do as an industry in the process. A good example of this is our adaptation of the PTV Visum Simulation-Based Assignment (SBA) technique, which now allows whole cities to be simulated, not just small areas, providing all-encompassing tools and ultimately a single source of truth. Having deployed this dozens of times for a myriad of applications (e.g. council model developments, construction disruption modelling, developer approvals, business cases), this has been one of our most successful advancements for industry, and we’re looking forward to sharing this IP with industry more broadly in the coming year.
What was the catalyst for starting Clarity in 2021?
Clarity was established amidst Covid and some unfortunate personal events. My daughter was born in the months prior to COVID under horrific circumstances. She suffered a stroke at birth and was induced in a coma for two weeks, spending nearly 3 months in NICU. Thankfully, despite what Doctors had advised us, she made it home. But the brain injury from this left her with a lifelong disability of Cerebral Palsy.
This forced my wife Siobhan and I to accelerate lifelong ambitions to start a transport modelling firm, as we needed both a high level of flexibility (to attend medical appointments and the like), as well as financial freedom to future-proof our family, with no fall-back plans or safety nets available for us post this life event. This period often reminds me of the famous Winston Churchill quote, “When you’re going through hell, keep going”. At 2 am on a Tuesday, this definitely keeps me going!
Overall, we attribute a lot of our success and drive to inspiration drawn from our daughter Isla, who was able to defy all odds right from her first moments of life. Even now, being able to walk and talk – most things people take for granted.
What does the Clarity / PTV partnership mean and why partner with Transport Professionals Association?
At the start of 2026, Clarity was appointed by PTV Group (the sellers of software like Vissim, Visum and VisWalk, among other things), to be the Strategic Partner for the Australia / New Zealand region. Clarity’s core function in this is to support customers and market development across ANZ, leveraging our domestic experience, intertwining it with international best practice applications and seeking further collaborative partnerships with consultants, government and academia. To this end, we are seeking collaboration across the market, so please do reach out if we haven’t already spoken so we can work out how best to support you. Suffice it to say, there’s a lot more to the PTV world outside conventional offline modelling – to say I’m impressed would be an understatement.
To amplify our presence and mission in ANZ, PTV and Clarity also came on as Leadership Partners for TPA. This was driven by our desire to partner with the peak body in our industry and thereby strengthen our core message – we are here as PTV++ and are dedicated to expanding and enhancing the usage of PTV software across Australia and New Zealand.
How are any perceived conflicts being managed with Clarity acting as PTV for ANZ?
I do note that Clarity Consult operates as a transport modelling consulting firm, and questions on conflicts have arisen on this basis. However, partnerships between software vendors and consultancies are common in the transport modelling industry, where firms often support vendors through local representation, training and implementation assistance. Historically, even larger consultancies have also held distributor roles for modelling platforms here in Australia. Notwithstanding this, we understand there may still be concerns with respect to confidential information, so for full transparency, below are two core considerations:
- PTV does not provide information to its Strategic Partners on how licenses are used in practice, including project details, telemetry, client engagements, geographic application, or the location of PCs. The only information provided is administrative items, such as license configurations and maintenance dates
- PTV fully recognise the importance of safeguarding the commercial and technical information of our clients. Any commercially sensitive information relating to projects, technical queries, client work or intellectual property remains strictly ring-fenced within PTV and is not shared with strategic partners.
To reiterate a previous point, Clarity Mobility is here to support and grow the market. So do reach out so we can work out how best to support you. Or reach out directly to Ryan Wong at PTV should there be commercially sensitive matters that need to be discussed and ringfenced. I promise not to take it personally.
What is your hope for the transport modelling field?
Moving forward, I’d hope to see more cross-collaboration within the industry, as I’d like to think we’re all working towards the same goal - developing better communities for the greater good. While this may read as naïve or counterintuitive in a competitive consulting environment, I still do believe everyone in our field does this job because they both love it and understand the positive impacts we’re having on the communities around us.
I think TPA is doing a good job in providing a platform to start this conversation, but we should all be doing more to share wins, losses and lessons learned and ultimately, improve together. This will be a core push from Clarity/PTV as TPA Leadership Partner, to determine what we can do to reduce those barriers for collaboration and further enhance our industry.
What is your hope for Clarity moving forward?
Five years ago, we had a vision of what we wanted to accomplish by establishing Clarity. Starting out from a bench in my living room with Covid running rampant and a toddler crying in the background, the future was uncertain. But determination was clear.
I’m truly humbled to have gone from the lone dancer in the field (this is how I picture myself, thanks to Arash and Atousa for believing in the vision! - Lone Dancer) to now having offices in Melbourne and Sydney with nearly a dozen dedicated transport modelling professionals. We are a small, well-connected, high-performing team that enjoys working together, and I wouldn’t change a thing. So, moving forward, we have no aspirations of massive expansion. What we do want to continue doing, however, is driving innovation and being a catalyst for change. When people and practices are set in their ways, we know this is hard, but not impossible. So, we will continue on our mission, excited for what the future holds and what we can continue contributing to the industry.
What is your biggest win/highlight from the last five years?
When people talk about business success, it’s often gross profit, EBITDA, etc. For me, there’s one key metric I can’t get past – in five years of Clarity, no one has ever resigned! Time will tell if I can say the same thing in another five years, but for now, I’ll take the win and hope to continue fostering a working environment that mirrors and even improves our history, as we slowly grow.