We tend to forget how permanent roads are and how ongoing are the benefits and disbenefits that they create

Roads are an integral part of our nation’s infrastructure. British colonisation in 1788 brought with it the requirement that every piece of subdivided land had to have land access via a public right-of-way. The land was often grudgingly given and was rarely part of any grander transport plan. Thus, almost from the beginning, governments have had to step in and impose a grander vision beyond the farm-to-market needs of individual land owners.

For example, Melbourne was created in 1836. The first land sales were in 1837 and by early 1841 the man in charge, Superintendent Charles La Trobe, was rebuked by the Colonial Secretary in Sydney for not providing adequate land access to properties and for not having appropriate forward planning.

La Trobe responded later in the year by producing a plan with 15 arterial roads leading out of the small new settlement. In one form or another, all exist today. We tend to forget how permanent roads are and how ongoing are the benefits and disbenefits that they create.

The problems La Trobe faced are the same as the problems we face today. What are the reasonable transport demands of all the various land users? What is the best way to satisfy those demands? How will those demands change with time?

If the last query sounds a little esoteric, remember that roads are usually the longest lasting and oldest piece of infrastructure in our communities. One of the Melbourne routes being studied today as a result of the Eddington review is a route that first appeared on La Trobe’s 1841 plan.

Forward planning is not easy. An apocryphal state planning official remarked: “If I could predict the future, I’d be on a beach in the south of France and not working as a Grade 2 government planning officer.” A key element of forward planning is the estimatation of future population. Various retrospective assessments indicate that 25 per cent errors are commonplace and recent experiences with toll-road traffic confirm these levels.

Another major problem has been our inability to control, let alone predict, future land use. State governments need to be much better in the way in which they match land-use controls with economic and social strategies at one extreme and transport plans at the other.

Thus, road planning must allow for a range of future scenarios, as today’s assumptions and passionately held views are quite likely to be proved wrong. To avoid past parochialism, planning for any new road system must also be done at a level above the immediate region affected by the planning.

Australia is not alone in tackling transport issues. Much can be gained from comparisons with other transport systems in other countries, some of which will already be experiencing our future and even doing some things better than we are.

In the area of land transport, my own observation of world trends is that the best systems have good road networks and good fixed-track systems. It is not an either/or decision. Major centres are linked by freeway-standard roads and all significant towns have road bypasses or ring roads. However, the bulk of surface freight and much personal transport between centres is carried by rail.

It seems to me that these should be ‘givens’ and the debate should be focused on how to deliver this core system and on which areas should be designated ‘major centres’. This designation must be coupled with other national policies and with the strongest of land-use controls.

After his recent review of Australian infrastructure, Sir Rod Eddington remarked that he was surprised by the lack of ‘shovel ready’ projects. I had come to the same conclusion in a review I did of Australian infrastructure investment for an international agency.

In the rational development of infrastructure there is a pipeline of potential future projects, ranging from good ideas at one extreme to contracts about to be let at the other.
Ideally, the initial pipeline stages are as follows:

1. Tapping the three generators of future transport needs:

• needs for efficiently and effectively operating the existing road system;
• future needs from demand-producers such as land-use and population changes and economic trends; and
• needs generated by government policies, political decisions and innovative proposals.

2. Using these needs and expected budgets to produce a transport strategy, and then a set of specific proposals to address the needs.

3. Removing projects which are unsustainable or environmentally unacceptable.

4. Selecting the proposals with benefits exceeding costs.

5. Selecting the most appropriate remaining projects, gaining approvals to proceed and preparing project documentation for bidding.

This last is the ‘shovel ready’ stage.

There is no need for any secrecy in stages 1 to 4. However, in recent decades state governments have frequently acted more like magicians than forward planners.

They have drawn back curtains at the last possible moment to announce their next major project. Magically, untested and under-developed concepts become projects about to be built. Behind the curtains, there has been no consistent canvassing of needs, no structured forward planning and only the most secret and subjective of project assessments.

So when someone like Eddington asks “why do you advocate project X?” the answers are patently unconvincing. Furthermore, the project deliverers have had no chance to prepare in advance for the next round of projects.

We must ensure that good judgement is not overwhelmed by the intricacies or un-needed secrecies of planning and assessment. In addition, uncertainty about the future need not be an impediment.

For example, in planning for conditions in 2030, the first test is to consider the rate of change from 1990 to 2010. Could the proposed forward plan manage the quantum of changes that have occurred over the previous 20 years? History has amply illustrated that one of the great transport advantages of the road system is its ready adaptability to change.

The indications from the 2008 ATSE Report by Professor Len Stevens (Assessment of Impacts of Climate Change of Australia’s Physical Infrastructure) are that the road system will be relatively immune to the effects of climate change.

A point which is rarely understood is that in the total operation of a road system, the cost of building and maintaining the road in annualised terms is commonly only about 10 per cent of the costs being incurred by those using the roads. This explains the relatively high benefit/cost ratios associated with many road-construction projects.

Optimising the system must therefore focus primarily on optimising the usage of the system and not on its construction. A rational system of user charging is part of this process, but a larger part is the use of more efficient and appropriate vehicles and fuels.

Examples that readily come to mind are large passenger vehicles inefficiently carrying single passengers, truck designs that fall well short of world’s best practice and the almost-complete absence of intelligent transport systems managing traffic on the road system.

Despite the available technology, vehicles today operate as independently of each other and are as subject to the same irrational whims of their drivers as they were a century ago. Thus there is much that can be done to enhance the existing road system for both freight and personal transport via information technology, systems management and improved vehicle technology.

Hopefully the lessons of history and geography have been learnt. All nations need an efficient road system. The evidence of many countries and times is that it can only be achieved with persistence and good and appropriate planning.

Further reading
M. G. Lay, 2009. Review of the 2008 Victorian Transport Plan (with an emphasis on the road aspects) (Victorian) Planning News, 35(1):18-19, February)

Dr Max Lay AM FTSE PhD DEng HonFIEAust was made a Member of the Order of Australia in June 2005 for “service to engineering, particularly through leadership in the delivery of quality road infrastructure and the development of new contract management processes, and as an educator and historian.” In July 2009 he was awarded the John Shaw gold medal by Roads Australia. He is the author of articles on roads in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Economic History.

Dr Max Lay’s book Handbook of Road Technology has gone into its fourth edition. The 944-page hardback book – in the words of the publisher – continues to be an indispensable international resource for students and professionals in transport planning, engineering, operations and economics. See ATSE in Focus. The Handbook may be ordered for $265 from EA Books.