Experimental estimates of the economic contribution of all transport activity to the Australian economy.

• BITRE summary–Economic Contribution of Transport in Australia
  
  INFRA3738_BITRE_TRANSPORT_ECONOMIC_ACCOUNT_INFO_SHEET_1019.pdf
  (249.48 KB)

A common rational for the making of transport-related forecasts is the need to anticipate the growth of transport activity and the demand it will place on transport infrastructure. Anticipation of this demand allows for forward planning of needed improvements/additions to key parts of the networks.

As such, it is useful to examine how close past Bureau forecasts were to predicting this growth, and to learn from any obvious errors.
This is the aim of the current report.

• Forecasting Australian Transport: A Review of Past Bureau Forecasts
  
  rr_149.pdf
  (3.16 MB)

BITRE undertook two rounds of ex-post evaluations of national road investment projects: one in 2005–2007 and the other in 2014–2016. Available evidence suggests that there is much room for improvement in the quality of Australian road CBAs if they are to be used as an effective tool for ranking options and prioritising projects. The net present value (NPV) was over-estimated by significant margins in some of the selected case study projects. Over-estimation in NPV was largely caused by over-estimation of road user benefits (up to 500 per cent), with the errors mostly coming from travel time cost saving estimates. Inaccurate traffic forecasts and methodology errors were mostly responsible for the over-estimated road user benefits. There was no evidence of systematic cost overruns for the projects selected for ex-post review. Lessons learned include recommendations for improvements in CBA documentation and review, traffic forecasts, and estimation of road user benefits and residual values.

• Ex-post Economic Evaluation of National Road Investment Projects–Volume 1 Synthesis Report
  
  rr_145_vol1.pdf
  (3.87 MB)

• Ex-post Economic Evaluation of National Road Investment Projects–Volume 2 Case Studies
  
  rr_145_vol2.pdf
  (6.94 MB)

In recognition of both the progress of climate science and the need to manage the risks faced by future generations, the majority of the world's governments are implementing programs for the long term reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Accordingly, the Australian government has committed to an 80 per cent reduction on the 2000 levels of emissions for the Australian economy by 2050.

As the second largest greenhouse gas emission contributing sector in the economy at 16% of national emissions, transport will need to make a significant contribution to the abatement target. The question then arises as to the potential greenhouse gas abatement options available to the sector.

The Australian transport industry, researchers and government have in many cases deep knowledge about the issues of environmental sustainability, and individual transport sector greenhouse gas abatement options. However, that knowledge is fragmented due to the diversity and complexity of transport.

There are existing studies of transport abatement options but they are limited to a narrow subset of the available options. As a consequence no single document is available to provide an overview of the options and potential for abatement in the transport sector. With this background the ARRB Group, BITRE and CSIRO formed the Australian Low Carbon Transport Forum (ALCTF) in July 2011 to bring together knowledge on the options for greenhouse gas abatement in transport and explore how deeply emissions could be cut in the sector.

• Greenhouse gas abatement potential of the Australian transport sector–Summary report
  
  alctf_summary_report.pdf
  (1.85 MB)

The Australian Low Carbon Transport Forum (ALCTF) was initiated by a project secretariat comprising ARRB Group, BITRE and CSIRO. It was organised to bring together knowledge on the options for greenhouse gas abatement in transport and explore how deeply emissions could be cut in the sector.

A report describing the main findings of the study has been published under the title Greenhouse gas abatement potential of the Australian transport sector: Summary report.

This current Technical Report is a companion document to the Summary Report, and aims to detail the methodology and results of the ALCTF process. That is, it describes how the estimated levels of abatement were calculated for each of the abatement options considered in the ALCFT workshops, and how the various abatement potentials were aggregated into an estimate for the maximal potential reduction.

• Greenhouse gas abatement potential of the Australian transport sector–Technical report
  
  alctf_technical_report.pdf
  (1.85 MB)

This information sheet covers a wide range of subjects, including commuting, freight, rail, energy and safety. The following 12 facts are included:

1. How big is the transport network?
2. How far do we travel?
3. Is this increasing?
4. How do we travel?
5. Are we changing how we travel?
6. Why do we travel like this?
7. What about freight?
8. Is freight transport increasing?
9. Are we commuting longer?
10. How do we pay for transport?
11. Is transport becoming more energy efficient and causing less emissions? and
12. Is transport safety improving?

• A dozen facts about transport in Australia
  
  is_075.pdf
  (762.61 KB)

Australian, State and Territory Governments are committed to improving the infrastructure that is critical to efficient, productive and equitable operations of our economy. Achieving this objective requires efficient procurement processes and careful examination of costs to ensure value for money in infrastructure investments. Governments have cooperated to conclude the first national pilot benchmarking of infrastructure procurement processes and construction costs (as recommended by the 2014 Productivity Commission Inquiry into Public Infrastructure and agreed by the Council on 28 August 2014). This report covers the findings of the initial benchmarking and outlines plans for continued and improved future monitoring of infrastructure procurement performance and construction costs.

The analysis was undertaken by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) for the Infrastructure Working Group of the Transport and Infrastructure Council. The report is also available on the Transport and Infrastructure Council website.

• Infrastructure Benchmarking Report
  
  cr_003.pdf
  (311.81 KB)

Users of the transport network are not its only beneficiaries. Land owners can also gain as increased value flows along the network are capitalised into land. Value uplift financing attempts to capture a portion of this by levying the landholders in the catchment areas of new infrastructure. The main problem with this system is that is very difficult to localise benefits in a network. This has led some to propose a broad based land tax instead.

• Transport infrastructure and land value uplift
  
  is_069.pdf
  (483.4 KB)

Estimates of Wider Economic Benefits (WEBs) are increasingly featuring in cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) of major urban transport infrastructure projects. Governments are particularly interested in WEBs because they relate to productivity. The parameters used to estimate WEBs in Australia to date have been estimated using methodologies that are inconsistent and not in line with international best-practice. Thus the reliability and comparability of WEBs estimates in Australian CBAs is questionable. The report proposes a way to develop a robust set of parameters for practitioners to use when estimating WEBs.

The report was commissioned by BITRE on behalf of Steering Committee oversighting the Review of the National Guidelines for Transport System Management. If a robust set of parameters can be developed, it will be published in the Guidelines. BITRE engaged consultants KPMG to undertake the task.

• Developing productivity elasticities for estimating WEBs in Australia–Scoping Study

The National Ports Strategy was developed by Infrastructure Australia (IA) and the National Transport Commission (NTC) in 2010 at the request of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).

Recommendation 3.10 of the National Ports Strategy is that 'The Bureau of Infrastructure Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) should assess the conditions under which the introduction of dedicated freight land transport infrastructure segments related to relevant container ports would be justified'. BITRE engaged consultants Ernst & Young to undertake the task.

The project involved a literature search with a review of overseas experiences, stakeholder consultation, identification of potential projects, and rapid cost–benefit and financial analyses of two case study projects to assess their potential viability.

The project concerned access to major Australian container ports only–Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Fremantle. The term 'dedicated freight land transport infrastructure segments' has been interpreted broadly. It encompasses freight-only road and rail segments, tunnels, and lanes, but extends to infrastructure investments with a freight priority, for example, a road open to freight vehicles at all times but open to cars only during peak hours to relieve congestion.

Part A of the report contains the literature review, principles under which dedicated or priority freight infrastructure might be warranted, a survey of the landside access challenges facing major Australian container ports, and identification of potential case studies for further investigation.

Part B consists of the two case studies

• a new road link between the Port of Melbourne precinct and the West Gate Freeway, and
• a new rail link between the Port of Brisbane and the Surat Basin, which would carry coal and containers.

It should be noted that these are concept projects specified for the purposes of the case studies. They are not intended to replicate actual proposals previously or currently under consideration.

• A study of the potential for dedicated freight infrastructure in Australia