WHAT FUTURE FOR ROADS IN A SUSTAINABLE WORLD

People Mobility and Economics

Professor John ColeUniversity of Southern

Queensland

These megatrends will shape future

1. More from less - depleting natural resources and increasing demand for those resources means resource use efficiency

2. A personal touch - Growth of services followed by second wave of innovation aimed at tailoring and targeting services

3. Divergent demographics - OECD ageing and lifestyle and diet related health problems vs 3rd world high fertility rates, malnourishment and poverty .

4. On the move – career mobility, moving house more often, commuting further and travelling overseas more often

5. i World - paralleling natural world with digital virtual world

Our Future World Draft March 2010An analysis of global trends, shocks and scenarios Compiled by Stefan Hajkowicz and James Moody with detailed input from over 50 CSIRO scientific and business development staff

Australia’s dilemma

Graph from “Factor Five: Transforming the Global economy through 80% Improvements in resource productivity”, Ernst von Weizacker et al Earthscan London 2009 p 241

Can we compete with a cost structure like this?

Total delivered cost

100%

Raw materials 30

Manufacturing 27

Delivery cost and returns

43

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu/GF Baking Division in The Australian 11 Feb 2012 p 15

Cost of a loaf of bread Australia

Road freight estimates and forecasts 1972-2030

National Transport Commission 2011

More cars, fewer passengers, more trips

Connecting SEQ 2031 Qld Government

Australia – economic directions as personal experience

Services dominant

Health and Education are growth sectors

I thought the talk was about sustainability…

Can we live sustainably

?

The biggest question of our times

“…it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours”

Al Gore in The Assault of Reason (2007) 213

Sustainability

A system condition Aspirational goal Not necessarily a

natural state People focussed

concept

Connectedness

Pote

nti

al

Resilienc

eIt’s about us

Roads, systems and sustainabilityRoads as Structure Roads as function

Geophysical Spatial impacts Embedded energy

and materials Ambient

environmental impact

Economic functions – mobility and trade

Social functions – mobility, settlement patterns

Metaphorical functions – human psychology

Functional impacts – environmental and social

System issues:governance, business models, status, utilisation

BAU is not working

“The traditional approach is proving unsustainable.

“The community should be encouraged to reconsider its perception of the road network as being a pure public good.

Jim Murphy, Deputy Secretary, Commonwealth Treasury 22 March 2012AFR 23 March 2012

More will be spent on trains and ports and roads

AFR 2 Nov 2011 40 projects$41b - 75% Victoria and Qld

The curse of traffic congestion

AFR 2 Dec 2010 p7

“The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE 2007) estimates that the avoidable cost of road congestion is currentlyin excess of $10 billion per annum, and that this cost will continue to rise over the comingdecade, reaching around $20 billion nationally by 2020 if we continue ‘business as usual’.

“The real cost of building roads has increased by around 65 percent over the last 15 years. There is also less suitable land for new roads in our cities, and evidence increasingly suggests that new roads are not in themselves a solution to congestion”.

Discussion Paper: Our Cities- building a productive, sustainable and liveable future – Commonwealth Government 2010

Public expectation re utilities & infrastructure

Lack of full cost pricing Energy/materials intensity Peak oil Market asymmetry/distortions Lifecycle investment Utilities business models inc cost One size fits all

Sector systems threats presents opportunities

We take our roads for granted

As a percentage of GDP infrastructure spending reduced by around 40% in the decade to 2007 (The Australian 22 Jan 2011 p7)

$700bn shortfall – IE Aust Jan 2011

ALGA - road maintenance and upgrade shortfalls exceed $1.2bn annually (CM 15 Oct 2010 p 25)

$16 bn spent on school halls $3.4 bn spent on rail

Automotive transformation – is anyone interested?

49 electric cars sold in Australia in 2011

Factor 10 improvement in car emissions needed to meet 2050 target

2011 cars were about 3% more fuel efficient than cars year before

Nissan Leaf 170 k m on $6 But costs $51,000

AFR 16 Mar 2012 p 17

Get someone else to pay

The Australian 4 August 2011 p6

Public-private partnerships supported by Australians

The business model is not profitable

$3.2 bn airport link Record daily use

81,470 August Projections

135,000 daily

10 banks have $3bn in the project

Debt restructuring inevitable

Needed – a funding model to reflect socio-economic transition

This is where we are…

“Acceptable ideas are competent no

more and competent ideas are not yet

acceptable”

The Sustainability Paradox

Stafford Beer, Platforms of Change, New York, John Wiley and Sons: 1975

There are things we can do to properly price road usage

AFR 23 Feb 2011, p13

Whole systems approach to resource productivity

1. Ask the right questions to ensure the need or service is met

2. Benchmark against the optimal system

3. Design and optimise the whole system

4. Account for all measurable impacts

5. Design and optimise subsystems in sequence

6. Ditto to achieve compounding resource savings

7. Review the system for potential improvements

8. Model the system track technology innovation

9. Design to create future options

Light Weight Geopolymer

Aerated geopolymerFly ash

Materials innovation

Multi-modal precints

High speed freight

http://www.rail.co/2012/03/21/high-speed-freight-train-runs-from-lyon-to-london/

Freeways to streets

We cannot ignore the socio-cultural context and function of roads

Road haulage = base load flexible mobility

But the roads sustainability issue will not resolve until… Full lifecycle costs are understood,

accounted for and paid Viable business models sharing risk

and stimulating public and private investment are developed and accepted

Australians understand that nothing is free

Fixing inefficiency delivers short as well as long term payback

john.cole@usq.edu.au

Thank You