Thursday, September 24, 2009

Victorian Transport Plan

The Victorian government has been promoting a "Victorian Transport Plan" on free to air TV using advertisements. This may have some unintended negative effects. I am in Canberra, which is not in Victoria, and yet I see the ads. This makes me wonder if the Victorian government is spending its transport money wisely.

The Victorian advertisements looks very similar to those which the NSW Government used to promote its "North West Metro". These advertisements were designed to reassure the public that this plan was going to be implemented very soon, unfortunately this turned out not to be true.

The Victorian government might usefully reallocate money from advertising a transport plan to replace its stalled MyKi smart card ticketing system. The Victorian Minister for Transport might like to visit Istanbul and ride their integrated public transport system, using an Akbil electronic token. Istanbul's Akbil is less technically sophisticated than Melbourne's MyKi, but has the advantage of being proved in daily use. Melbourne could benefit from such a system.

The Victorian government is renaming Melbourne's train system a 'Metro'. A metro system is distinguished by having a high capacity, frequent service. Usually with a metro there is no timetable, with services running at specified frequencies, such as every five to fifteen minutes. The Melbourne trains are not such a system and are therefore not a metro. As with the NSW failed North West project, simply relabeling a rail line a "Metro" will not make it one. In the case of Melbourne rail, the service is provided by a private operator, who could be taken to court for falsely offering a Metro service.

The last problem is that the Victorian government has made it very difficult to obtain the actual plan advertised. The plan is in the form of numerousdifficult to read files, some of which are very large, under an obscure link: "Download the plan":
Summary document

Full document

Document in parts

Audio (MP3) version

Consultant reports

  1. Victorian Transport Plan Stakeholder Engagement Summary Report (PDF, 228 KB, 28 pp.)
  2. Booz and Co: Melbourne Public Transport Standards Review (PDF, 217 KB, 15 pp.)
  3. Edward Dotson: East West Link Needs Assessment Recommendations 1, 2, 3, 6 (PDF, 185 KB, 3 pp.)
  4. GHD: EWLNA and Northern Link (PDF, 13,861 KB, 81 pp.)
  5. GHD: Hoddle Street Advice (PDF, 19,168 KB, 91 pp.)
  6. Maunsell: Review and Analysis of Historical and Proposed Commuter Ferry Services on Port Phillip (PDF, 657 KB, 49 pp.)
  7. Meyrick: Economic Assessment (PDF, 321 KB, 28 pp.)
  8. Price Waterhouse Coopers: Review of Social, Demographic and Land Use Analysis (PDF, 135 KB, 22 pp.)
  9. Price Waterhouse Coopers: Additional Impacts Analysis (PDF, 505 KB, 22 pp.)
  10. Price Waterhouse Coopers: Critique of Assessment of Conventional Costs and Benefits (PDF, 1561 KB, 41 pp.)
  11. Price Waterhouse Coopers: Review of the Estimation of Wider Economic Benefits (PDF, 115 KB, 20 pp.)
  12. SGS Economics and Planning: Melbourne Employment Projections (PDF, 933 KB, 34 pp.)
  13. SGS Economics and Planning: Valuing Household Sector Non-Transport Benefits in Cost Benefits Analysis (PDF, 632 KB, 39 pp.)
  14. Summary of Model Outputs (PDF, 1,802 KB, 23 pp.)
  15. The Nous Group: Transport Abatement Wedges (PDF, 706 KB, 54 pp.)
  16. Veitch Lister: Zenith Model Establishment And Validation Report (PDF, 2,935 KB, 34 pp.)
  17. Veitch Lister: Background Assumptions (PDF, 919 KB, 11 pp.)

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