I think you're mis-applying the example of design contests (which I agree are generally lame, but for a different reason). This is a chance for someone to do a

I think you're mis-applying the example of design contests (which I agree are generally lame, but for a different reason). This is a chance for someone to do a public service and solve an interesting prediction problem. It's for the government and benefits commuters, not some for-profit corporation. That said, I think this would be a more interesting contest if Sydney showed their current work on the problem and measured progress against it (a la Netflix)