Regional public transport plays an important role in meeting the needs of Australians living in regional and remote areas for access to essential services and for mobility. This paper provides information on long-distance regional public transport services in Australia, and includes a snapshot of all such services across Australia in 2000–01 and the level of demand and characteristics of regional passenger travel in 1999–2000. The report also provides projections of likely future long-term trends in regional passenger travel. A companion paper, Regional public transport in Australia: Economic regulation and assistance measures (Working Paper 54), provides information on the regulatory arrangements and assistance measures relating to regional public transport.

• Regional Public Transport In Australia: Long-Distance Services, Trends And Projections
  
  wp_051.pdf
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Regional public transport plays an important role in meeting the needs of Australians living in regional and remote areas for access to essential services and for mobility. This paper provides information on Commonwealth, State and Territory government regulatory arrangements and assistance measures relating to regional public transport in 2001–02.

A companion paper, Regional public transport in Australia: Long-distance services, trends and projections (Working Paper 51), provides information on long-distance regional public transport services in Australia, and includes a snapshot of all such services across Australia in 2000–01 and the level of demand and characteristics of regional passenger travel.

• Regional Public Transport in Australia: Economic Regulation and Assistance Measures
  
  wp_054.pdf
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This report presents the results of a BTRE study to estimate likely future levels of noxious pollutant emissions from motor vehicles in Australian metropolitan areas.

• Urban Pollutant Emissions from Motor Vehicles: Australian Trends to 2020
  
  cr_002.pdf
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The questions of why regions grow or fail to grow, and what, if anything, governments can do about it have attracted considerable interest and debate for many years. This report provides a select review of previous government intervention approaches and experiences in pursuit of regional development. The review provides useful insights into the purpose and outcomes of various government-sponsored interventions in Australia, and in a number of other comparable countries.

• Government Interventions in Pursuit of Regional Development: Learning from Experience
  
  wp_055.pdf
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Over the last few years, the Commonwealth has devoted considerable resources to the task of helping local government authorities maintain and upgrade their road systems. The major initiative was an extra $1.2 billion in road funding paid directly to councils through the Roads to Recovery programme but federal authorities have also been directed to work with their local government counterparts to improve road policies and practices. The Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics' main contribution to this initiative has been to carry out two research projects. A regional analysis of council road finances was published last year in BTRE Working Paper 44, Spending on Local Roads, and this report presents a complementary study of State and Territory spending on roads including the assistance they provide to local government. It also identifies the roads for which State and council authorities are respectively responsible in each jurisdiction. The BTRE would like to thank State, Territory and Local Government organisations that assisted in the preparation of this report by providing information or advice on road finances. The data presented in this report is based on the responses provided by the States and Territories to the BTRE's Survey of State Government Spending on Roads. The BTRE has made every effort to ensure the figures are internally consistent and has relied on the State and Territories to ensure the accuracy of the data.

• State Spending on Roads
  
  wp_056.pdf
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The BTRE projects that the total freight task will continue to grow strongly. Such growth will increase the infrastructure maintenance needs and possibly hasten the need for capacity expansion. Setting prices for infrastructure use that reflect costs provides important signals as to the appropriate level of transport activity, choice of transport mode, and the level of infrastructure spending. At the Australian Logistics Council (ALC) meeting on 7 November 2002, the Council asked BTRE to provide a comparative analysis of current land transport pricing regimes and their objectives and to present the findings at the next Council meeting, held on 27 February 2003. This working paper comprises the paper prepared for the ALC and already released by the ALC as a discussion paper.

• Land Transport Infrastructure Pricing: An Introduction
  
  wp_057.pdf
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This report is the third in a series covering the socio-economic costs of transport accidents in Australia. Transport accidents impose a significant burden on the Australian community. Not all of their consequences can be expressed in financial terms. However, to weigh up options for minimising and dealing with this burden, it is important to know the costs of transport accidents.

• Rail Accident Costs in Australia
  
  report_108.pdf
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Since the early 1990s, railway operations in Australia and in many overseas countries have been radically reformed. One reform has been widespread outsourcing of railway activities such as infrastructure maintenance, to encourage efficient provision through competitive tendering for services. In some cases, entire rail operations have been contracted out or privatised. The major reform, however, has been to introduce regulations to require access to rail infrastructure by outside ("third-party") train operators. This mandated access also supports rail interoperability objectives facilitating train service coordination by streamlining the logistics chain across infrastructure networks.

Prior to these regulations, there were no access charges because the track use was an internal transaction within the railway company the company maintaining the infrastructure had exclusive use of the tracks for its own trains. In essence, the railway's revenue was generated only from tariffs for transporting goods and passengers. However, with mandatory access, rail infrastructure owners offer an additional service non-track owners' access to the infrastructure.

What are fair, equitable and efficient charges for that access? We know that the level and structure of these charges matter, for they account for, perhaps, one-third of the train operator's total operating costs. This report focuses on the rail infrastructure pricing structures that have developed with mandated access around the world, and the lessons that can be drawn from the subsequent experiences.

Our analysis involves consideration of the benefits and costs of mandatory access; the principles of efficient access charges; Australia's systems of access and pricing; international pricing and access systems and the lessons from the experiences with them. While principles of access charges apply equally to freight and passenger trains, mandated access is generally directed only at freight operations. For that reason, in this report we consider only freight operations.

• Rail Infrastructure Pricing: Principles and Practice
  
  report_109.pdf
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On rural roads, the speed that a driver chooses will affect their travel time, vehicle operating costs and crash costs. Recent Austroads valuations of these costs are used in this paper to estimate the total economic cost to society of travelling at different speeds on roads with different crash rates. Critical in this analysis is estimating the change in crash cost that would result from a change in vehicle speeds. This report assumes a 10 km/h change in average speeds produces a 30% change in crash costs based on international evidence. For a hypothetical mix of cars and trucks on a rural road with an average crash cost, the speed that produces the lowest total of travel time cost, vehicle operating cost and crash cost is between 90 and 100 km/h. On a hypothetical road with a low crash rate (and a crash cost one quarter of the average), the optimum speed is between 110 and 120 km/h. Achieving different speed regimes is not just a matter of changing the posted speed limit. The paper concludes by suggesting that ITS technology could be used to vary and manage speeds.

• Road Speed Limits: Economic Effects of Allowing more Flexibility
  
  wp_059.pdf
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This paper looks at differing investment and growth patterns of irrigation dependent regions along the course of the Murray River. It derives estimates of investment in irrigated agriculture and in the associated manufacturing industries in the regions and then identifies the key underlying causes of regional differences.

• Working Paper 58: Investment Trends in the Lower Murray-Darling Basin
  
  wp_058.pdf
  (2.38 MB)