13 minute read
New South Wales plots transport revolution
Around four years ago, then New South Wales Premier, Nathan Rees, was asked about Sydney’s debilitating – and mounting – congestion crisis.
New South Wales plots transport revolution
‘Congestion is a concern for all Sydneysiders, and if you think you are in traffic, you are in traffic. It’s not a relative concept,’ said Rees.
‘It’s no good for me saying, “Oh, it’s much worse in New York or Paris.”
‘It’s like being in love. If you think you are in love, you are in love. If you think you are in traffic, you are in traffic.’
While it was a curious metaphor, the point, Rees later explained, was that Sydney’s commuters don’t care about the fact that congestion is worse around the world; they only care how it affects them.
Unfortunately for many Sydneysiders, the task of simply getting to and from work each day has been laborious. Crippling congestion on major motorways, inefficient freight networks and decades of underinvestment in the state’s railways have all played a major role in New South Wales’s stuttering productivity performance over the past decade.
And while all sides of politics agree that transport networks in New South Wales are inadequate for a growing population, there remains a lack of consensus on appropriate solutions.
Just days after Rees spoke of Sydney’s congestion woes, he announced a multi-billion dollar plan for a CBD metro service. The flagship project, which would have consisted of a nine-kilometre railway running from Rozelle to the CBD, was later delayed, and then ultimately scrapped in 2010 by Rees’s successor, Kristina Keneally.
The project’s axing was a financial disaster, costing the state more than $400 million and resulting in severe public and industry backlash from which the government never recovered.
Voters demanded change, and the subsequent election win by the Coalition was accompanied by a strong mandate for reform.
The message from voters was clear: fix the mess and start to deliver real plans, backed by real projects.
The government’s response has been a suite of governance and operational reforms to remedy the state’s ailing transport networks and finally start to deliver commuters more efficient, reliable services.
One of the most significant reforms was the creation of Transport for NSW (TfNSW) to integrate planning across modes and agencies to deliver a single, statewide transport plan. The creation of TfNSW saw the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) and NSW Maritime replaced by Roads and Maritime Services (RMS), and the Country Rail Infrastructure Authority and the Transport Construction Authority brought together under Transport for NSW.
And in a first for the state’s transport sector, strategy, planning and policy functions were taken away from transport providers such as RailCorp, leaving them to concentrate on service delivery and network management.
BELOW: Sydney Ferries have been a target for reform
New South Wales plots transport revolution
BELOW: The proposed three-tier network structure for the New South Wales rail network.
Importantly, the new structure allows for timetabling for buses, ferries and rail to be done concurrently, ensuring that public transport services are properly interconnected, and creating a more efficient service for commuters.
Notably, the reform also establishes a framework that allows for impartial judgements to be made on the best mode of transport along different corridors, ensuring that road and rail projects are not being planned in isolation.
Bolder structural reform of RailCorp followed. In February, Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian announced an all-encompassing review of the organisation, stating that the government department was no longer fit for purpose, and was costing taxpayers around $10 million a day to run.
Berejiklian said that as fares and running costs continue to rise, they are not being matched by service improvements.
A research paper by Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, ‘Franchising Passenger Rail Services in New South Wales: Options for Reform’, found that in 2005/06, every passenger journey on the RailCorp network required a taxpayer contribution of $6.77, on top of the fare paid by the commuter. By 2009/10, the level of taxpayer subsidy had surged to $8.33 for every passenger journey, stripping $2.3 billion from the state’s budget.
The overhaul of RailCorp will eventually see the establishment of two specialist organisations: Sydney Trains, servicing the greater Sydney suburban area; and NSW Trains, focusing on intercity, regional and country passengers.
The new structure – which will take 12 to 18 months to bed down – will see assets remain in the government-owned organisation, but removed from the Sydney Trains and NSW Trains operating entities, leaving those delivery units to focus on operation and maintenance of trains.
Reform of the state’s railways has continued. In June, almost four years after Rees tabled his plans for a CBD Metro, the government announced one of the most substantial modernisations in the history of Australia’s suburban railways.
The long-term rail strategy, titled ‘Sydney’s Rail Future: Modernising Sydney’s Trains’, outlines a fivestage approach to solving Sydney’s rail problems, including Australia’s first ‘metro’-style high-frequency network – albeit in a different incarnation to that proposed by Rees in 2008.
Broadly, the five stages include: • improving operational efficiency through the introduction of a new, standardised timetable and a reduction in dwell times • improving network efficiency through the introduction of Automatic Train Operations, which improve the way trains accelerate and brake at stations, enabling increased capacity • introducing single-deck trains operating on a metro-style timetable between the North West and Chatswood, following the completion of the North West Rail Link (NWRL) • constructing a second harbour crossing and new CBD line, allowing services from the NWRL to extend directly to Sydney’s CBD • extending single-deck rapid transit services to the Bankstown and Hurstville lines, thus completing plans for a three-tiered rail network comprising single-deck rapid transit, double-deck suburban, and intercity regional networks.
The government confirmed that the $8.5 billion North West Rail Link will be procured and delivered under three separate contracts, including the Operations, Trains and Systems (OTS) package being delivered as a public private partnership (PPP). continued on page 26
New South Wales plots transport revolution
RIGHT: New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell continued from page 24
The $8.5 billion NWRL will be the first segment of the network to run the high-frequency single-deck services, with the line to be operated by the private sector.
The decision to bring in the private sector is important, as it breaks a century-long public monopoly on passenger rail services in New South Wales. By opening the North West sector up to a private operator through a competitive bidding process, the government is ensuring that globally experienced private operators will come back with smart and innovative bids to increase comfort and quality, and drive down the costs of passenger rail services.
The metro-style operation planned for the North West will see services terminate at Chatswood, with passengers interchanging for services to the CBD.
Eventually, the plan is to build a second harbour crossing, with trains from the NWRL running through to the CBD, and joining a wider Sydney highfrequency metro-style network.
Sydney is one of the only major cities in the world without a single-deck, high-frequency metro service. Even more unbelievably, with the Algiers Metro beginning operation in November last year, Australia is now the only inhabited continent without a completely driverless metro train service.
With Sydney’s population expected to swell to six million by 2031, and to 7.5 million by 2050, the government has made it clear that it needs to find solutions to the structure and operation of an ageing rail network already plagued by bottlenecks.
On a ‘no-change basis’, the CBD, Western, Northern, North Shore, Bankstown, East Hills and Airport Lines – and the North West Rail Link – would reach or exceed maximum capacity limits by 2031.
But under the government’s plan, Sydney’s rail network would be able to carry an additional 90,000 to 100,000 passengers per hour, with the construction of new train stations relieving pressure on crowded CBD platforms.
The use of the private sector to help deliver the state’s public transport services has been a central focus for the O’Farrell Government.
Earlier this year, Harbour City Ferries – a 50/50 consortium of Transfield Services Australia and Veolia Transdev Australasia – was granted the contract to operate Sydney’s ferry network under a franchise agreement.
That contract sees the New South Wales Government retain ownership of the fleet and maintain control over fares and timetabling, with Harbour City Ferries taking over the delivery of services.
The shift to franchising completed a process that began with a 2007 report by Bret Walker SC, which recommended franchising through competitive tendering to drive up service quality and apply downward pressure on the cost of provision.
The focus on service delivery has extended to the state’s bus sector, with Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian confirming in May that private sector bus operating contracts in metropolitan Sydney will be competitively tendered as they expire.
While change has been incremental, it has been rapid and far-reaching. The reform to buses is expected to be followed by the franchising of rail services, lowering the cost of public subsidies.
Above all else, the reforms across the transport space signify recognition that the status quo will not sustain the state’s transport networks through the coming decade.
Of course, the improved planning of new projects – and better operation of existing transport services – will need to be accompanied by a step-change in funding capacity. Asset sales, tolling and the application of value-capture methods will all have to be canvassed, debated and ultimately implemented if the state is going to fund its very ambitious plans for new motorways, rail links and light rail projects.
The public sector unions have been quick to point to the structural reforms across the transport portfolio – and particularly the outsourcing of the ferries – as the ‘thin end of the wedge’.
Every taxpayer and commuter in New South Wales should be hoping they are right.
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SMEC has extensive experience in the Australian Transport sector, with a proven track record in delivering large-scale and complex infrastructure projects, including the $1.5 billion Westlink M7 project in New South Wales, whereby SMEC completed detailed designs. For Victoria’s largest ever single road project, EastLink ($2.5 billion), SMEC acted as the proof engineer. On the multi-award winning $1.88 billion Gateway Upgrade project in Queensland, SMEC provided detailed design services which involved the duplication of the Gateway Bridge and the upgrade of 20km of the Gateway Motorway. In South Australia, SMEC completed detailed design services for the $564 million Northern Expressway. SMEC provides cost-effective, practical project outcomes to private and public sector clients in a wide range of transport disciplines, including: roads and highways, bridges and structures, rail infrastructure, traffic and transport planning, ports and airports.
CONSTRUCTING AUSTRALIA’S FUTURE
Since its establishment in 1961, Abigroup has played a major role in building Australia’s infrastructure and has successfully delivered some of the country’s largest and most important projects.
This year, Abigroup has already secured a number of important new projects in key sectors and also has achieved a number of key milestones.
Water
Abigroup Water had a very successful start to 2012.
In May, the company was awarded a project by the Hunter Water Corporation to build a new water recycling plant as part of the Hunter Treatment Alliance program of works.
In April Abigroup started work on the construction of new water treatment plants in Bowen and Proserpine in North Queensland for Whitsunday Regional Council.
The project forms part of the Council’s $85-million water and sewerage future development scheme and involves the construction of a 16.5-megalitre plant in Bowen on the Proserpine River downstream of the Peter Faust Dam, and a 14.5-megalitre plant in Proserpine on the old pound site on Pound Yard Road.
Also in April Abigroup Water was awarded a new scope of works by Sydney Water for a wastewater treatment plant in Sydney’s south as part of the ongoing Odour Management Program (OMP) Alliance of works.
The work to be carried out at Cronulla Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) consists of an upgrade to the plant’s odour management system and to the existing civil, mechanical and electrical infrastructure to improve life and operability.
Roads
In early 2012 an Abigroup joint venture started major work on the design and construction of the $407.5 million Southern Expressway Duplication project in Adelaide for the South Australian Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure.
The project involves building a new road alongside the existing expressway carriageway to provide a two-way 18.5-kilometre road from Darlington to Old Noarlunga to the south of Adelaide.
Also in early 2012, Abigroup, as part of the Southern Way Consortium, completed the first bridge over the 27-kilometres $759-million Peninsula Link motorway project in Victoria.
Resources
Abigroup continued to secure an increasing amount of the resource infrastructure work in 2012.
In May, Abigroup secured a $210-million contract to carry out bulk earthworks for Bechtel at the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) Caval Ridge Mine in central Queensland.
The contract covers the Southern Package of Bulk Earthworks for the infrastructure of the coal mine, which is located in the Bowen Basin approximately 18 kilometres south-east of Moranbah.
Earlier in the year, Abigroup completed a $116-million contract to design and construct the seawall bund and haul road for the Port of Gladstone Western Basin expansion in Queensland.
The project, which was completed ahead of schedule, is part of Gladstone Ports Corporation’s infrastructure expansion to cater for the increased shipping requirements from the new Liquefied Natural Gas plants on Curtis Island.
The completed seawall bund for the Port of Gladstone Western Basin expansion in Queensland.
Rail
In April, it was announced that Abigroup had been awarded a multi-million dollar slice of the design and construct contract for the Hurstbridge Line Upgrade, a $60.8-million project funded by the Victorian Government.
The project includes reconfiguring the Eltham stabling yard to add two extra train storage roads, and an upgrade of signalling on the rail line, in Melbourne’s outer northeast.
In February, Abigroup, as part of the Lawson Alliance, successfully completed, commissioned and handed over a new 600metre section of the Main Western Railway. The Alliance’s scope in the rail corridor during this possession included trackwork, overhead wiring and signalling.
This was the first major section of mainline rail track that Abigroup has constructed in the Sydney network and an integral part of our upgrade of a 2.9-kilometre section of the Great Western Highway from a two-lane roadway to a fourlane divided road.
Building
In May, it was announced that Abigroup had been selected by Griffith University to design and construct their new G42 Business School on the Gold Coast campus.
The project, which is valued at $27.6 million, involves a seven-level building that will house teaching and learning facilities, including a simulated trading room, offices for academics and support staff, a lecture theatre and seminar rooms.
In early 2012, Abigroup completed work on the $14.3-million refurbishment of Queensland Museum at Brisbane’s South Bank Cultural Centre. The works were designed to create better access to the Museum and exhibitions, and to improve general facilities.
