Infrastructure Victoria - Good Move: Fixing Transport Congestion

As we consider the consequences of COVID-19 and the long-term impacts on behaviour change, Infrastructure Victoria has a timely report titled “Good Move: Fixing Transport Congestion”.

It is the next phase in their research on transport network pricing and presents an illustrative model of how paying differently can work in Victoria, including a number of implementation options for government.

It is critically important that we get to illustrative models in order to make sure we look at the breadth of issues and impacts that such a move is likely to have.  Most planners believe that road-pricing is an essential measure to get fairness and adapting behaviours to provide cost effective solutions to congestion.

So far, the concept of a road user charge has been dismissed out of hand and been labelled by some areas of the political system and the media as an additional “tax”.

Infrastructure Victoria says that 

“Transport network pricing provides the incentive and motivation for behaviour change. It was one of the top three recommendations in the 2016 30-year Infrastructure Strategy and has been a key focus of our research over the past four years. Our latest research found that introducing a variable transport pricing system with discounts and concessions for fairness could result in:

·       up to 85% of people paying less

·       168,000 fewer road trips per day, reducing the pressure on the road network

·       people shifting modes of transport to public transport and buses.

Link to their web site and the full report or watch a presentation