Meeting Australia’s 2025 land transport challenges

In May 2015, Infrastructure Australia released its draft National Infrastructure Audit that highlighted the need for Australia to respond to future population growth and increasing demands for and congestion of land transport and other infrastructure networks. This paper proposes that in light of the Audit’s findings, policy makers must give more attention to both improving rail infrastructure and new methods of transport pricing to effectively manage the effects of future population growth and high costs of road congestion. Pricing methods include congestion pricing and massdistance-location pricing that were both raised in the 2004 AusLink White Paper. In managing the land transport effects of population growth and network congestion, this paper outlines the need by the mid-to-late 2020s for new major urban rail capacity projects to be completed such as Melbourne Metro and new rail crossings of Sydney Harbour and the Brisbane River. For freight, it makes the case for constructing an inland railway between Melbourne, Parkes and Brisbane and improving the East-West rail corridor to North American Class I railroad standards. Regional rail networks linking grain areas to ports will also need upgrading, and more gauge standardisation will be needed. The benefits of new and improved rail infrastructure will include less road congestion, improved safety, reduced dependence on imported oil and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

• Record URL:
  https://railknowledgebank.com/Presto/content/Detail.aspx?ctID=MTk4MTRjNDUtNWQ0My00OTBmLTllYWUtZWFjM2U2OTE0ZDY3&rID=NDM0Mg==&sID=NTA=&ph=VHJ1ZQ==&qcf=&rrtc=VHJ1ZQ==&bckToL=VHJ1ZQ==
• Authors:
  • Martin S
  • Laird P
• Conference:
  • CORE 2016, Maintaining the Momentum, Conference on Railway Excellence, Melbourne, Victoria, 16-18 May 2016
• Publication Date: 2016

Media Info

• Pagination: 9p. ; PDF
• Monograph Title: Maintaining the momentum: CORE 2016: conference on railway excellence, 16-18 May 2016, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Congestion pricing; Infrastructure; Population; Pricing
• ATRI Terms: Congestion pricing; Infrastructure; Population; Transport pricing
• Subject Areas: Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01636868
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ATRI
• Created Date: May 30 2017 3:29PM