Urban Transport Challenge: DRIVING REFORM ON SYDNEY’S ROADS Infrastructure Partnerships Australia 8th Floor 8-10 Loftus Street Sydney NSW 2000 T +61 2 9240 2050 F +61 2 9240 2055 www.infrastructure.org.au For more information please contact: Brendan Lyon Executive Director Infrastructure Partnerships Australia PO Box R 1804, Royal Exchange, Sydney NSW 1225 T +61 2 9240 2050 E
[email protected] Peter Colacino National Manager - Policy Infrastructure Partnerships Australia PO Box R 1804, Royal Exchange, Sydney NSW 1225 T +61 2 9240 2050 E
[email protected] I II Contents Executive Summary V Recommendations VII 1 Introduction 1 2 Sydney’s Road Network 3 2.1 Sydney’s Changing Road Network 3 2.2 The Unfinished Network – the ‘Missing Links’ 9 3 The Case for Change 11 3.1 Drivers of Demand 11 3.2 The Cost of Congestion 15 3.3 So, is the Current System Broken? 21 3.4 Why Hasn’t it Been Fixed? 22 3.5 How Can the Road System be Fixed 24 4 The Use of Tolls to Optimise Utilisation 27 4.1 Achieving Operational Harmonisation 27 4.2 The Process for Toll Setting in Sydney 27 4.3 How Can the Tolling Regime be More Efficient? 29 4.4 Use of Network Tolling to Promote New Investment 32 5 A New Model for Tolling 33 5.1 Models for Tolling 33 5.2 Types of Variable Road Toll 35 III 6 Principles for Introducing Network Tolling 39 6.1 The Relevance of the Road Hierarchy 39 6.2 Principles of Traffic Flow & Optimising Asset Use 39 6.3 Reducing User Costs & Responses to Road Pricing 41 6.4 Price Elasticity of Demand 42 6.5 Creating