Technology of the future

Transurban joins big guns in bid to revamp transport

• THE AUSTRALIAN
• MARCH 26, 2015 12:00AM

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Damon Kitney

Victorian Business Editor
Melbourne
https://plus.google.com/118107316791307666801

Scott Charlton is the CEO of Transurban. Source: News Corp Australia
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Toll-road operator Transurban has formed a landmark alliance with some of the world’s biggest companies from the telecommunications, traffic services, software and data analytics fields to develop new technology designed to revolutionise the way Australians use their transport networks.
Transurban is working with telecommunications company Singtel Optus, navigation, map and traffic service provider TomTom, analytics software specialist QuantumIT and networking developer and manufacturer Cisco on applying emerging technology to the nation’s transport networks and the toll-road company’s customers.
“We all understand the tremendous advances in technology and connectivity that is happening. We are bringing together a group of companies that probably haven’t worked together before,’’ Transurban chief executive Scott Charlton told The Australian.
He said the working group partners would explore the technology and data analytics that could advance transport network management and enhance how commuters use roads.
These would include looking at how user road-charging could be applied in a wholesale and cost-effective way and how road networks could be managed more efficiently. “To get the roads to speak to the vehicles to help manage the network better,’’ Mr Charlton said.
The group would also work on developing services and products to enhance the road-user experience.
“To get better, more relevant information to our drivers, make it safer for them to use the road. Things that consumers want,’’ Mr Charlton said, noting that some of the products could be made immediately available to drivers.
Along with the working group, Transurban is also partnering with Virginia State University (known as Virginia Tech) and the Virginia government in the US to apply for a research grant to develop a regional network pilot program of connected vehicles, systems and applications.
The US Federal Department of Transportation is sponsoring the project.
Transurban owns the CityLink toll road in Melbourne, which connects three of the city’s major freeways, and has stakes in five tolled motorways in Sydney and five of the six tolled motorways in Brisbane.
Internationally it has stakes in the 495 Express Lanes on a section of the Capital Beltway around Washington, DC. It also has an interest in the connecting 95 Express Lanes project on Interstate 95.
Last month, Transurban, along with its partners in the Westlink M7, announced that the contract had been finalised for the long-awaited $2.9 billion NorthConnex project in Sydney, NSW, that will link the M7 with the F3 freeway.
Mr Charlton announced the working group and Virginia government partnership in delivering the 2015 Infrastructure Partnerships Australia (IPA) Oration in Sydney last night.
In the speech he warned that according to the company’s internal modelling, congestion levels would be heading to the levels of the world’s most gridlocked cities, with drivers in Sydney and Melbourne sitting in traffic for more than 120 hours a year by 2050. He released research conducted by EY Sweeny and commissioned by Transurban that found that most city motorists favoured a user-pays system rather than increased fees and higher petrol taxes to fund major road infrastructure.
The survey of 1000 people in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane found 60 per cent were in favour of charging motorists for usage — 57 per cent saying a user-pays system was fairer for all motorists than a flat-fee approach.
“For our shareholders, we need the transport networks — all modes of transport — to function efficiently. As a road company you can’t maximise your assets if they are turned into carparks,’’ Mr Charlton said.
Ken Henry, chair of Australia’s Future Tax System Review Panel and Treasury Secretary, has previously estimated road congestion wastes “around $9bn a year in avoidable congestion costs, increasing to around $20bn by 2020”.
Dynamic road pricing has been implemented in some of the world’s major cities such as London and Stockholm, which have introduced congestion charges, while Singapore now has Electronic Road Pricing. There are also high occupancy toll lanes in the US and distance-based charging in New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Poland as well as several US States.
Mr Charlton said in his IPA speech that the old model of paying for road networks from government tax and excise charges had “outlived its usefulness”.
“It is not transparent and it is inherently unfair. What is the relationship between service cost and provision? What is the relationship between who uses the road and their contribution to funding?
“And, importantly, what is technology going to do to the fundamental economics over the next decade?’’ he said. “It’s the motorists who can’t afford to buy the latest model cars that are paying the most. On top of that there is the question of how this funding model can possibly sustain itself as we increasingly shift to greater fuel efficiency?’’
Over the next 12 months Transurban plans to conduct a simulation excise to test various road-pricing models and derive data to would help progress options for a sustainable funding model.
The exercise will be conducted in Melbourne across the whole road network, using volunteers from Transurban’s customer base.
It will trial various user-pays models including a distance-based per-kilometre charge, annual fixed costs per kilometre based on expected usage and price per trip or charge to access the road network.
It will also trial time-of-day pricing on the network and a charge for entering the Melbourne CBD.