Comparable figures are provided for the first time on emissions of greenhouse gases from the Australian transport sector in 1900 and 2000. Greenhouse emissions from the transport sector increased ten-fold twentieth century, but Australia's population has increased five-fold, and real GDP 23 times, while urban densities are now only about one third of those in 1900. Within the limits of long-term historical comparisons, it is concluded that use of the internal combustion engine itself has not contributed disproportionately to greenhouse emissions in the transport sector. However, electric vehicles would have been better. This paper was authored by Dr Leo Dobes.

• Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Australian Transport 1900 and 2000
  
  op_110.pdf
  (7.06 MB)

This Report provides a 'business as usual' scenario for the emission of greenhouse gases from the Australian transport sector for the period 1993–94 to 2014–15. Models for emissions from cars, trucks, rail, sea and air transport reflect sectoral activity, fuel intensity and emission intensity factors.

• Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Australian Transport: Long Term Projections
  
  report_088.pdf
  (17.7 MB)

This Working Paper is an intermediate output in a research project being conducted by BTCE. The project team examines the adequacy of conventional methods for estimating economic benefits from transport and communications infrastructure investment.

• Evaluating Transport Investments With National Economic Models: Australian Experience With ORANI
  
  wp_013.pdf
  (2.9 MB)

This Paper provides an account of preliminary work on urban traffic congestion that forms part of the BTCE project on Urban Transport Externalities. The project is concerned with a range of external impacts of urban transport. Congestion is just one of these impacts but, because it is so intimately related to the traffic patterns which give rise to the others, it has been made the focus of the initial work.

• Urban Congestion: Modelling Traffic Patterns, Delays and Optimal Tolls
  
  wp_015.pdf
  (4.98 MB)

A collection of contributions by leading Australians in the field, this publication presents a range of perspectives on domestic and international trading of greenhouse emissions. It contains a high-level view of Article 17 of the Kyoto Protocol and associated negotiations, and explains current Australian programs and policies with respect to reducing greenhouse emissions and generating carbon sinks. This paper was authored by Dr Leo Dobes.

• Trading Greenhouse Emissions: Some Australian Perspectives
  
  op_115.pdf
  (18.53 MB)

Despite popular interest in the contribution of transport to emissions of greenhouse gases, little comprehensive information has been published to date on the costs and effectiveness of the various abatement measures espoused.

• Transport and Greenhouse: Costs and Options for Reducing Emissions
  
  report_094.pdf
  (7.46 MB)

The aim of this Working Paper is to estimate the cost of reducing greenhouse emissions by using a sink rather than by reducing the amount of travel or fuel usage. Because the sink can also be applied to other sectors of the economy, it provides a standard of comparison for most policy instruments.

• Trees and Greenhouse: Costs of Sequestering Australian Transport Emissions
  
  wp_023.pdf
  (4.72 MB)

This Working Paper forms part of a research project investigating into certain issues concerned with measuring the benefits of investment in transport infrastructure. The focus of the project is on possible benefits from increased employment; and benefits often claimed to be significant but understated by benefit-cost analyses, especially; cost savings from business logistic responses to improvements in infrastructure (for example, substitution of transport for inventory); rural regional development benefits; and the indirect benefits that an item of transport infrastructure provides to non-users of that infrastructure.

• Econometric Evidence on the Benefits of Infrastructure Investment: an Australian Perspective
  
  wp_025.pdf
  (3.03 MB)

Externalities in the Transport Sector: Key Issues is the first part in a series of Information Sheets that will provide estimates of the costs of externalities generated by road, rail, air and sea transport.

• Externalities in the Transport Sector
  
  is_010.pdf
  (1.52 MB)

Article 16 bis was a last-minute addition to the Protocol negotiated in Kyoto in December 1997 at the third Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It calls on the Parties to develop rules and guidelines for emissions trading 'for the purpose of meeting quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments'. No concrete consideration has been given yet to the modalities of introducing a scheme for trading emissions in countries like Australia. It is therefore timely to identify at least some of the practical implications that any such scheme might have, if it were to be introduced at some time in the future. Most of the literature on trading in greenhouse emissions has focused either on international aspects, or on general principles. Much of the literature is also incestuous, because the same examples of the limited number of existing (non-greenhouse) schemes tend to be drawn on in each article or book. Little has been written on the likely effects on various sectors of domestic economies. Even less has been written on the difficult issue of how to take account of carbon sinks. By contrast, this Working Paper breaks new ground by identifying a number of practical issues that merit serious consideration if a workable scheme is to be implemented in the transport sector. Nevertheless, the authors are conscious of the strong likelihood that not all relevant issues have been addressed. Any comment would therefore be gratefully received.

• Tradeable Permits in Transport
  
  wp_037.pdf
  (183.48 KB)