From 100k+ docs to AI knowledge hub.
Queensland Rail
Sector: TRANSPORT
Stage: Prototype → Production
Deliverables: Gen-AI Search Portal, AI Training Avatar PoC
We turned thousands of safety manuals into an Azure/OpenAI-powered knowledge hub, unlocking fast, trusted answers for 7,300+ rail workers.
INTRODUCTION
Queensland Rail (QR) moves passengers and freight across 6,600 km of track and employs more than 7,300 people. Its Safety & Environment Management System (SEMS) held decades of vital procedures, but staff spent hours hunting through PDFs. The brief: make SEMS searchable like Google, open it to partners, and prove AI can be governed on Microsoft Azure.
VISION
Put all rail-safety knowledge “on tap” for any employees, anytime.
More additional vision words go here. We’ll need if we need this. Might add more detail like this.
Discover & Design
Workshops That Mapped Risks and Proved AI’s Potential
We kicked off with a series of discovery workshops involving safety, engineering, and ICT teams to deeply understand the policy landscape and user needs. Together, we mapped end-to-end user journeys, catalogued critical data sources, and identified risk controls that would shape how the assistant answered queries.
To prove the concept early, we built and demoed a rapid RAG-powered prototype on Azure OpenAI that answered natural-language queries with source-linked citations — showing teams what was possible, fast.
Hands-On Training
A Rail-Safe Portal Built Securely Inside Azure
Once validated, we architected and delivered the Advanced SEMS Portal directly within QR’s Azure tenancy — ensuring compliance and ownership from day one. The system integrated blob storage, Cognitive Search, and OpenAI embeddings to power intelligent, context-aware search.
Role-based access controls and ServiceNow telemetry were added to provide robust governance, ensuring the right people accessed the right information with full visibility.
Pilot & Scale
Early Adoption, Rapid Feedback, and Measurable Impact
“The AI portal gives our people the right safety answer in seconds—not days. It’s changing how we work.”
Lahnee White
Senior Project Representative, Queensland Rail
SOLUTION
Designed and deployed a rail-safe AI assistant to answer policy questions instantly.
Automated nightly enrichment of 20k+ PDFs for structured, searchable knowledge.
Delivered role-aware access control and real-time usage analytics in Power BI.
Built vector + keyword search with RAG answers and source-linked citations for audit trails.
RESULTS
30 marketers trained, three cross-functional squads formed to pilot the top-ranked use cases within six weeks of the workshop.
After the workshop, it was clear: the team didn’t just need skills. Words here.
Adoption Highlight
Rolled out across engineering, safety, and field teams — 65% of QR staff used the portal in its first three months.
Query Success
Questions answered on first try, reducing follow-ups and inefficiency.
Manual search eliminated 40h per employee — freeing up team time for higher-value work.
Hours per week saved
Faster On-boarding
New hires reach competency four times faster with streamlined access to answers.
Platform, Many Uses
Same stack now powers both the knowledge portal and a training avatar, multiplying ROI.
OUR WORK
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