BY NADIA D’ANDREA
With construction drawing to a close, around 20 additional staff are needed to operate Newcastle’s light rail system.

Keolis Downer Hunter is recruiting drivers and operational staff its new multimodal centre at Wickham.


Testing for the Newcastle light rail will commence in the coming months, “which means we need drivers to go,”

Corporate Affairs Director, Andrew Fletcher said.




Keolis Downer is encouraging anyone who is interested to apply for the available positions.



“The most important requirement for our applicants is to be safety focused, where passengers are concerned and public transport is involved.

“But they also need good multitasking abilities – plenty of spatial awareness, peripheral vision, they need to be aware of pedestrian and vehicle movements at all times and they need to be fairly customer-centric,” Mr Fletcher said.


Successful applicants will undergo a rigorous 30-day long training course, which is a mix of “classroom style education and

also on the job training…

“Being in the vehicles, getting familiar with the vehicles and during the testing and commissioning phase being out on the streets and getting familiar with the route as well,” Mr Fletcher said.