OUR FUTURE CITIES: connected, sustainable and accessible
How did we improve on our powerful, productive E-Series Articulated Dump Trucks? We simplified them by adding more comfort and easy to use features. Then we added three new drive modes, a redesigned cab, improved the dump-body design and made them lighter and more fuel efficient. With automatic dump control, onboard diagnostics and rollover protection, the new E-Series-II Articulated Dump Trucks are designed to boost productivity and uptime, while minimising daily operating costs. And when you add the support of your local John Deere dealer, you’ll be ready for any long haul.
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Eliza Booth
Journalist
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National Media and Events Executives
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Designers
Jacqueline Buckmaster
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Laura Harvey
ISSN: 2206-7906
It’s an interesting time for Australia’s infrastructure industry. We’ve arguably got through the initial shocks from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but as it’s still not completely over yet, it can be difficult to see what things will look like in the future.
With major infrastructure projects planned so far in advance using data and trends that might not still be applicable, and assets needing to fill service needs that could change in the future, the questions around what our future cities and infrastructure will look like is one the industry is trying to answer.
We’re exploring these ideas in this issue of the magazine with our major features on urban development and smart cities. Infrastructure Australia’s 2021 Priority List provides some recommendations on what infrastructure we should be investing in, and we have other thoughtleading content on the current project pipeline, building social housing and smart urban design, as well as a focus on our regional areas when it comes to innovation and airports.
You’ll notice Australia’s airport sector also has a big feature in this edition as it is a sector that was hit hardest by COVID last year, so we’ve taken a look into the current state of affairs for both metropolitan and remote airports. Some asset owners, like Melbourne Airport, have actually used the past year to fasttrack some of their bigger construction projects, completing 64 projects since March 2020.
In addition to exploring these issues in the pages of this edition, the month of April also saw leaders from across the industry come together virtually for Infrastructure’s Critical Infrastructure Summit. The Summit ran for two weeks and featured the conferences State of play; Asset Management for Critical
Infrastructure; Disaster Management; and the Future of Infrastructure.
We’re extremely proud of this event, as our speaker lineup gave some great insights into the industry’s biggest challenges and predictions across the entire infrastructure lifecycle. More than 900 people registered, and the amount of engagement that occurred during the conferences and afterwards has been amazing, highlighting the knowledge that is available across the sector.
If you missed tuning into any of the four Virtual Conferences, you can read some of the coverage in this edition including the key messages from our Future of Infrastructure panel session on building our future cities.
Or, registered delegates have full access to all of the conference recordings on demand. If you’re not already registered, you can register at www.critical-infrastructure.com.au for access. Registering is free if you work for an infrastructure asset owner, government or not-for-profit.
We’ve also already started planning the next Infrastructure virtual event, which will take place in August, called Critical Infrastructure: Digitisation Series. This will run under the Critical Infrastructure Summit umbrella but focus specifically on different sides of digital transformation.
There will be two conferences: Digital Infrastructure: Implementing digital in physical assets and Cloud Infrastructure: The systems behind the new virtual economy, and we’re excited to get stuck into these fascinating topics.
If you’d like to get involved in the Critical Infrastructure: Digitisation Series or would like some more information, feel free to get in touch.
Jessica Dickers Editor
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THE INFRASTRUCTURE WE SHOULD BE INVESTING IN: BREAKING DOWN IA’S 2021 PRIORITY LIST
Infrastructure Australia released its yearly Priority List – highlighting the projects that the government should be investing in and key industry trends. In 2021 and beyond, infrastructure opportunities lie in new sources of energy, water assets, regional and remote communities, and developing export gateways at Australia’s ports, among other key proposals..
PARTNERSHIPS BUILDING BETTER HOUSING AND COMMUNITIES IN NSW
The NSW Government welcomes NSW social housing’s addition to Infrastructure Australia’s 2021 list of national infrastructure priorities; viewing it as another positive step forward and opportunity to work in another strong, strategic partnership, to help solve common problems.
BUILDING OUR FUTURE CITIES: CONNECTED, SUSTAINABLE AND ACCESSIBLE
DEVELOPING VICTORIA’S URBAN DESIGN
AUSTRALIAN INFRASTRUCTURE
PIPELINE RAMPING UP
Australia’s major project activity has eased during the pandemic, but the outlook has improved considerably, particularly for renewables.
CITIES
AN ARCHETYPE FOR INNOVATION IN REGIONAL AUSTRALIA
As regional communities around Australia begin their journeys towards creating a smart and innovative environment for residents to live, work and play in, it’s important that they stop to consider exactly what being a “smart community” means in the regional context.
NEW GROUND BASED WARNING SYSTEM FOR RAIL
I, ROBOT: AUTOMATING CONSTRUCTION WITH ROBOTIC TECHNOLOGY
SPATIAL DATA AND GAME ENGINES – BIG VISUALISATION POWER FOR BIG INFRASTRUCTURE
HIGH-CAPACITY SIGNALLING TAKES METRO TUNNEL TO NEW HEIGHTS
As Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel begins to take shape across the city, innovative technology is needed to help the system run more trains, more often, in a safe and efficient way. Assisting the new infrastructure to support the increase of services is the installation of next-generation, high-capacity signalling (HCS) along the Cranbourne, Pakenham and Sunbury Lines, as well as on the Melbourne Airport Rail, creating a more reliable public transport network.
The federal, state and territory governments have published their first annual report for the National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy. The report highlighted the need for sharing data in a consistent manner to improve industry efficiency and productivity.
PLANNING A RAIL PROJECT?
ENSURE PROJECT I-TRACE COMPLIANCE
INDUSTRY EVENTS
THE INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS DRIVING VICTORIA’S COVID RECOVERY
BRIDGES
HOLISTIC APPROACH TO BRIDGE ASSET MANAGEMENT
AUTOMATED AND ELECTRIC VEHICLES
WA’S FIRST EVER ELECTRIC VEHICLE STRATEGY
INFRA EXPLAINED
ROAD MATERIALS UNDER THE MICROSCOPE PART 2
– ASPHALT, SPRAY SEALS AND CONCRETE
The materials used in construction are of vital importance to a road’s safety, performance, maintenance requirements and longevity. They also significantly affect the construction costs of a road project and the total lifecycle cost of the asset. In the second article in a series on road construction materials, Infrastructure takes a closer look at hot mix asphalt, bituminous sprays and concrete mixes.
8 INFRASTRUCTURE AUSTRALIA PUBLISHES SUSTAINABILITY PRINCIPLES
9 $507 MILLION GLENHUNTLY STATION CONTRACT AWARDED
10 MELBOURNE AIRPORT RAIL CONCEPT DESIGNS REVEALED
11 TWO NEW CONTRACTORS FOR THE PORT RAIL TRANSFORMATION PROJECT 12 MAJOR RAIL LINE RELOCATED FOR NEW SYDNEY METRO 13 TUNNEL BORING MACHINE SECURED FOR SNOWY 2.0
14 THAT’S A WRAP ON THE 2021 CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE SUMMIT
18 A HEAD OF STEAM: INDUSTRIAL INSTRUMENTATION SOLUTIONS FOR BOILERS
With over 25 years’ experience in the real estate sector, Angela has broad based expertise in property development, urban renewal and infrastructure projects. She previously headed up MinterEllison's National Real Estate, Environment and Planning team, and has been a long-term contributor to various industry bodies. Since joining Development Victoria in 2017, she has been part of the leadership of the organisation in various roles and was appointed CEO in February 2019. Angela is passionate about creating a learning environment at DV, where people are encouraged to develop and maximise their potential, whilst achieving great outcomes for the community.
FCatherine Birch Senior Economist, ANZ Research
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Catherine provides research, forecasts and analysis on the labour market, business and infrastructure investment, ESG and the broader Australian economy. Prior to joining ANZ, Catherine worked as a Senior Policy Adviser/Economist for the Victorian Government, an Environmental Economist for the Namibia Nature Foundation, and an Economic Analyst for BIS Oxford Economics. Catherine holds a Master of International and Development Economics from the Australian National University.
Shadow Minister for Cities and Urban Infrastructure
Andrew was first elected to the Australian Parliament as Member for Scullin in 2013, representing the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He is currently serving his third term in Parliament, representing the Scullin community. He is the Shadow Minister for Cities and Urban Infrastructure, Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs, and Shadow Minister Assisting for Immigration and Citizenship. In the last Parliament, Andrew served on a number of parliamentary committees: Electoral Matters (as Deputy Chair); Privileges; and Infrastructure, Transport and Cities. Andrew’s policy interests include cities, education, the future of work, climate change, immigration and social policy.
New South Wales Minister for Water, Property and Housing
Melinda has been a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly since 2015, representing the seat of Oxley for The Nationals.
She previously served as the Minister for Roads, Maritime and Freight (2017-2019) and was the first woman to hold this Ministerial position, and was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council (2002-2015). She also served as the Shadow spokesperson for Emergency Services and the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health.
Melinda’s career began in radio journalism at 2UW in Sydney. In 1988, she moved into politics as a media officer for Matt Singleton, the then NSW Minister for Administrative Services. Over the next decade, she worked for a number of MPs, including Deputy Premier Wal Murray, Minister for Consumer Affairs Wendy Machin and National Party leader Ian Armstrong.
James Goodwin CEO, Australian
Airports Association
James was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Airports Association in June 2020. Prior to this, he was the Chief Executive of Australia’s leading vehicle safety advocate, the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) since 2015.
Before joining ANCAP, he held the position of Director – Government Relations & Communications at the Australian Automobile Association and also held a high-profile senior community and corporate affairs position at AirServices Australia.
A former journalist and news presenter, James worked for major network news outlets in Sydney and Canberra including several years in the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
Innovation Coordinator, City of Albury Wodonga
Imogen strives to do more than implement smart technologies to drive city community outcomes, she aims to bridge the digital divide in regional NSW and VIC. With over ten years building technological solutions to redefine humanity within the digital world, she turns her experience and attention to connecting Australia’s most resilient communities through innovative practises.
Over the past ten years, Imogen has worked predominantly in the private sector with Australia’s largest telecommunications provider Telstra developing ICT solutions for Australia’s Blue Chip Enterprises. This led to the support and continued development of utilising new technologies such as Virtual Reality to change the landscape of the aged care sector.
Recently released Sustainability Principles from Infrastructure Australia are set to guide and promote sustainability across the infrastructure sector, securing major investments to provide the best outcomes for the community.
Infrastructure Australia Chief Executive, Romilly Madew, said, “Our role requires us to help ensure the benefits of sustainability are harnessed.
“With this in mind, we have developed new Sustainability Principles to guide our own approach to sustainability and drive change across the sector.
“Ultimately, we want to ensure that community needs are properly understood and met through the efficient delivery of sustainable infrastructure.”
Ms Romilly said sustainability must be considered due to the scale of investments, long life of assets and the potential impact infrastructure may have on communities.
“This has only been amplified in an age of increasing uncertainty, resource scarcity, disruption, climate change and extreme weather events,” Ms Romilly said.
“It is now critical that infrastructure is delivered in a manner which produces sustainable outcomes.
“Infrastructure Australia’s view is that sustainability and sustainable infrastructure are contingent on balancing social, economic, environmental and governance considerations.
“Balancing outcomes across each of these four areas will help communities to be functioning and fair, while not adversely impacting future generations and the planet.
“Our hope is that the Sustainability Principles provide clear strategic direction to governments at all levels and the infrastructure sector around how to promote sustainable infrastructure and better community outcomes.”
Ms Romilly said sustainability is already a key consideration in Infrastructure Australia’s reform and investment recommendations.
“In publishing these new guiding principles, we are making an even greater commitment to promote, support, reflect and communicate sustainability across our work.
“The principles set clear and transparent expectations on how sustainability will be considered in future advice and publications, including the Infrastructure Priority List, revised Infrastructure Australia Assessment Framework and the 2021 Australian Infrastructure Plan.”
Sustainable infrastructure refers to the network and system, equipment and assets designed to meet the population’s essential service needs in a sustainable manner.
This results in infrastructure that is planned, designed, procured, constructed and operated to optimise social, economic, environmental and governance outcomes over an asset’s life.
The 2019 Australian Infrastructure Audit emphasised the benefits of adopting sustainability enhancing approaches to infrastructure assets and the associated risks of inaction.
♦ Protects and preserves ecological processes required to maintain human health and the functioning of natural systems
♦ Enables economic development while limiting negative effects on the environment and enhancing quality of life
♦ Represents the efficient use of financial resources or reduces lifecycle costs
The Sustainability Principles are now on the Infrastructure Australia website.
The Victorian Government has awarded a $507 million contract for the removal of two level crossings on the Frankston Line and the construction of a new Glenhuntly Station – a year ahead of schedule.
An alliance of Acciona, Coleman Rail, WSP, Metro Trains Melbourne and the Level Crossing Removal Project will deliver the project, lowering the rail line into a trench, and removing Neerim Road and Glen Huntly Road level crossings.
The congestion-causing boom gates at Glen Huntly Road and Neerim Road can be down for 58 per cent of the morning peak, when up to 40 trains run through. Early works will start towards the end of 2021, with major works to begin in 2022. The boom gates will be gone in 2023, and the project complete by 2024 – a year earlier than originally announced.
The project includes a new Glenhuntly Station, and pedestrian and cycle path connecting Ormond and Caulfield.
The station – which will have lowered platforms – will improve safety and accessibility for locals, and create better connections between public transport, shops and community areas.
The project will generate hundreds of jobs at peak construction.
The designs for the new station, incorporating community feedback collected during a recent survey, will be released in mid-2021.
The Federal and Victorian Governments have released concept designs for the new Melbourne Airport Rail at key locations along its route, including a new rail bridge over the Maribyrnong River.
Designs were published for a new rail bridge over the Maribyrnong River, and elevated twin tracks between Sunshine and the Albion Junction.
Airport trains will run through the Metro Tunnel, meaning commuters in the south-eastern suburbs can get to the airport without changing trains, and the majority of Victorians can get to the airport with just one interchange from their closest station.
Both the Federal and Victorian Governments have committed up to $5 billion each for the construction of the project.
Federal Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts,
Paul Fletcher, said tourists visiting the state will be able to get from the airport to regional Victoria in a hassle-free way – meaning more visitors and jobs for the regions. “The Morrison Government is pleased to announce that this major investment is expected to deliver approximately 8,000 construction jobs, and give Melbourne and greater Victoria a state-of-the-art airport connection,” Mr Fletcher said.
The new bridge will be 550m-long, 50m-high and built alongside the existing heritage-listed rail bridge over the Maribyrnong River.
Sunshine and the Albion Junction airport trains will gradually rise to travel on new elevated twin tracks across a distance of less than 2km, before descending and continuing at ground level alongside the existing freight line through Sunshine and Airport West towards the airport.
Reference design along the alignment is underway in consultation with key stakeholders including councils, communities, government agencies, Heritage Victoria and contractors.
Construction on the project is set to start in 2022 subject to all relevant approvals, with early works such as relocating utilities.
Melbourne Airport Rail has a target opening date of 2029, subject to relevant Federal and Victorian Government planning, environmental and other government approvals.
View a video of the concept designs at infrastructuremagazine.com.au/2021/03/30/melbourne-airport-rail-concept-designs-revealed/
Two important contracts have been awarded for new rail infrastructure at the Port of Melbourne’s Port Rail Transformation Project (PRTP).
WSP and Seymour Whyte Constructions have been engaged to develop new rail infrastructure at the port, including a new rail terminal interfacing with the container terminal at Swanson Dock East.
WSP will provide the design consultancy services, and Seymour Whyte Constructions the early contractor involvement.
The PRTP is an investment by the Port of Melbourne of more than $125 million for the total project, and provides a new operating environment and infrastructure to help move more freight off trucks and onto rail, and to make Victoria’s regional rail supply chains more efficient.
The works will include a new rail terminal interfacing with the container terminal at East Swanson Dock. Improving rail access to the port is a legislated condition of the Port of Melbourne lease.
Site investigations were undertaken in March 2021, with construction planned to commence in July 2021. The project is scheduled to be completed in the first half of 2023.
Port of Melbourne CEO, Brendan Bourke, said despite the challenges of COVID-19, the port is committed to its 30-year development strategy, including investing in rail.
“Our 30 year Port Development Strategy provides a clear plan to meet and enable sustainable trade growth over the long term,” Mr Bourke said.
“The PRTP is an important part of this plan. As Australia’s largest container and general cargo port, it’s critical that we maintain a long-term investment view so that we continue to meet the freight needs of Victoria and south east Australia.
“We are excited to be working with WSP and Seymour Whyte Constructions on the development of the PRTP.”
The Sydney Trains T1 North Shore Line has been permanently realigned between Chatswood and Artarmon to make way for the brand new Sydney Metro, with the move completed in just 48 hours.
NSW Minister for Transport and Roads, Andrew Constance, said the existing suburban railway tracks were effectively blocking the new city-bound Sydney Metro.
“We’ve essentially picked up and moved one of Sydney’s oldest and busiest railway lines, which was an amazing feat of engineering and required incredibly hard work from the 250 local workers involved,” Mr Constance said.
The critical track work has been completed at Chatswood so that Sydney Metro can be extended from the city’s north-west into the Sydney CBD and beyond to Bankstown.
The northbound Sydney Trains track, which was first built in 1890, was cut and moved to connect with new tracks 20m to the west, to make way for the Metro North West Line to extend into the new twin metro tunnels.
“The huge operation took 48 hours to cut, slew and join the existing suburban line with almost 900m of new track and about 2.5km of new overhead wiring,” Mr Constance said.
“I want to thank the entire team for safely completing this work in last weekend’s extreme weather conditions, and for getting services back up and running in time for Monday’s peak.
“Work to convert the new tunnels and underground stations into a working metro railway is gathering pace and this is another major piece in the puzzle.”
So far, almost 11km of track and more than 10,000 railway sleepers have also been installed as part of the Sydney Metro City and Southwest project.
All up, 62km of Australian-made rail steel weighing more than 4,000 tonnes will be used to lay 31km of railway tracks in the twin tunnels between Chatswood and Sydenham.
Sydney Metro rail services between Chatswood, the Sydney CBD and Bankstown start in 2024, when Sydney will have 31 metro railway stations and a 66km standalone metro railway system.
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In a crucial milestone for the Snowy 2.0 project, the first giant tunnel boring machine (TBM) has been secured, putting excavation works in sight.
The milestone was celebrated with the official naming by Snowy Hydro Ltd: The ‘Lady Eileen Hudson’ TBM.
Named after an important Snowy Scheme ambassador and the wife of inaugural Scheme Commissioner Sir William Hudson, the Lady Eileen Hudson TBM will excavate the 2.6km main access tunnel for the Snowy 2.0 project and provide access to the site of the underground power station cavern.
The TBM is the first of three that will eventually be working on the project, which will significantly expand pumped hydro electricity generation from the iconic Snowy Mountains Scheme.
Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor, said, “The commissioning of the first TBM marks a major achievement for Snowy 2.0.
“This machine will dig out about 16m of rock each day, and will eventually provide critical access to the site of the power station, 800m underground.
“The project has seen significant ramping up of activity over the last year, and it’s already creating a jobs boom, with a current workforce of 1,000 people and an expected 4,000 direct jobs over the life of the project.”
When completed, Snowy 2.0 will increase the Snowy Hydro Scheme’s capacity by 2,000 megawatts and provide 350,000MWh of large-scale storage, enough to power the equivalent of 500,000 homes for over a week during peak demand.
It will reduce volatility in the market, support reliability and bring down power prices.
The Federal Government has committed up to $1.38 billion in equity for Snowy 2.0, with Snowy Hydro funding the remainder of the project.
Snowy 2.0 is expected to be progressively commissioned from 2025.
The 2021 Critical Infrastructure Summit ran over two weeks in April with four Virtual Conferences exploring the industry’s biggest challenges and predictions across the entire infrastructure lifecycle.
The Virtual Conferences for 2021 included Critical Infrastructure: State of play; Asset Management for Critical Infrastructure; Disaster Management; and the Future of Infrastructure. Close to 900 industry professionals registered for the Summit which was free to attend for infrastructure asset owners, government and not-for-profits.
This year we were lucky to have some incredible companies supporting the delivery of the Summit, with our 2021 sponsors including Summit Partner Secolve; Session Partners
Infor and OSIsoft; Major Sponsor In2 Project Management; Panel Sponsors Nozomi Networks, Nearmap and MOXA; and Summit Sponsor BSI Group. Here’s what went down across the four virtual events.
CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE: STATE OF PLAY
State of Play was the Summit’s keynote session, looking at the current state of the industry and the biggest issues currently facing Australia’s critical infrastructure.
The keynote speaker Richard Wankmuller, CEO of Inland Rail, gave a great update on the Inland Rail project. He looked at the benefits the increased investment will bring communities and customers; the completed Parkes to Narromine section; current and future works between Tottenham to Albury in Victoria, Narrabri to North Star in NSW and the 128km section from Gowrie
to Kagaru in QLD; how the delivery strategy has been transformed; as well as what’s in store for 2021.
Of particular interest to our delegates was the detail Richard gave around the procurement status, as the project has over $8 billion in procurement, with $2 billion of works having been awarded since it began.
Jonathan Cartledge, Director of Policy and Research at Infrastructure Australia, delivered a presentation on opportunities for resilience in a year of uncertainty.
This provided some fantastic information and advice on an infrastructure-led response to COVID-19. He explored the unique opportunities from the pandemic that governments should consider in policy, planning and investment; the challenges that will need to be addressed as a priority; a systemic approach to resilience including touching on upcoming IA reports on short-term actions for asset owners, longer term actions for all stakeholders, and Sustainability Principles.
Jonathan also talked about understanding the capacity of the market and gave some insight into the 2021 Australian Infrastructure Plan
Lisa McLean, CEO of NSW Circular, broke down the circular economy approach and how the Australian infrastructure industry can make the most out of opportunities in nextgeneration circular infrastructure, a topic that is not only increasingly important, but one that is starting to gain more traction in infrastructure projects.
Then the event wrapped up with our industry panel The last six months in infrastructure, which was sponsored by Nozomi Networks. We were joined by James Goodwin, CEO, Australian Airports Association; Jon Davies, CEO, Australian Constructors Association; Michel Masson, CEO, Infrastructure Victoria; and Marty Rickard, Senior Customer Success Advisor, Nozomi Networks.
The panel discussion could have gone on for hours, but we were lucky to discuss topics including the state of the aviation sector and what’s needed moving forward in infrastructure and processes; the construction sector’s role in economic recovery; risk management in the operational technology space; the sector opportunities to look out for; the importance of data and collaboration; and much more.
Laith Shahin, Founder and CEO at Secolve, said it was exciting to connect with, and hear from, so many critical asset thought leaders and industry experts.
"The continued growth of the critical infrastructure sector will create new cyber security threats and ongoing challenges. As such, cyber security is of paramount importance and achieving
visibility into the assets will be critical to protecting the sector against these cyber risks," Mr Shahin said.
ASSET MANAGEMENT FOR CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Asset Management for Critical Infrastructure is one of our longest running conferences and has been held both in person and virtually. The conference brings together utility and infrastructure leaders to discuss the most pressing issues in asset management. Infor was the Session Partner for the conference and the Major Sponsor was In2 Project Management.
Julian Watts, Director, Engineering and Asset Management Advisory, KPMG, opened the event with his keynote presentation on operating models and asset-intensive organisational design for success. This was a fantastic inclusion in the asset management conversation and provided delegates with some great advice on change at an organisational level.
Julian explored drivers for change and enablers for good asset management; typical approaches to organisation design; developing organisation design principles; a path to a functional model; and reference models for a connected enterprise; among other topics – it really gave delegates lots of rich information on the topic.
Then Damien White, Group Executive, Safety, Engineering and Technology, Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC), looked at ARTC’s system-wide
deployment of the Advanced Train Management System (ATMS).
He talked about how trains are currently managed and the benefits the ATMS system is providing by removing the reliance on trackside infrastructure to regulate the passage of trains.
We also had an interactive industry panel on digital asset management, sponsored by MOXA. Our panellists included Dusan Stojkovic, Project Manager and FiBridge Product Lead, VicTrack; Angelo Fiumara, Digital Asset Manager, Essential Energy; Tyrone Toole, Chief Technology Leader, Road Asset Performance, Australian Road Research Board (ARRB); and Sever Sudakov, Solution Architect, MOXA.
It was great to have a wide variety of sectors represented here, from road and rail to power and utilities, and the discussion ranged from digital twins and drones to the importance of data collection for more informed decisionmaking, the impacts of cyber security, and much more.
David Whitfield, Asset Management & Enterprise Solutions Specialist at Infor, said that in recent years, rapidly evolving technology surrounding critical infrastructure, its systems and assets is changing the mindset, strategies and future planning for infrastructure asset managers.
“Connected, intelligent, integrated systems, the availability of inexpensive, large data storage capacity, AI and machine learning, and the adoption of cloud-based delivery of solutions has resulted in critical infrastructure asset managers facing a ‘quantum leap’ in the way we design, build, construct and operate a multitude of systems and assets across our society today.
“It’s no longer enough for asset managers to keep assets ‘up’. The myriad of data now able to be collected from asset strategies and activities is delivering a new value right across the business and is critical in supporting organisational business goals including procurement, finance – and capital investment strategies.”
Disaster management is such an important topic for the
infrastructure industry, especially given the challenges it's faced over the past year. Even aside from the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia's critical infrastructure has faced natural disasters from fires to floods, as well as many other challenges such as cyber attacks.
The Disaster Management conference content was aimed at helping critical services prepare, survive and thrive in the face of major disaster events. It kicked off with Toby Kent, Co-founder of EllisKent and Chair of the Future Business Council, who presented on societal resilience and critical infrastructure.
As highlighted in Toby’s presentation, the conference was as much about infrastructure resilience as it was disaster management. Toby explored a framework for considering resilience and the seven qualities of resilience, as well as the relationship between critical infrastructure, chronic stresses and acute shocks.
Our second speaker Sam Kernaghan, Director of Resilience Program at the Committee for Sydney, further built on these ideas through his presentation which looked at rebuilding after disaster events – developing a long-term plan to reduce the cycle of disaster, response and recovery.
Sam talked about where we need urban resilience; how we can reduce urban disaster risk; a risk-informed, system-based approach; understanding the community’s changing vulnerability; leveraging existing assets; and the upcoming leadership opportunities around resilience for Sydney.
The final section of the conference was an industry panel looking at future-proofing Australia’s infrastructure, sponsored by Nearmap. The panellists were Penny Joseph, Head of Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation at Sydney Water; Fiona Dunk, Group Crisis, Emergency and Security Manager at Jemena; and Tom Celinski, Chief
Technology Officer at Nearmap.
The panel looked at a wide range of topics including the impacts of COVID-19; gaps in Australia’s disaster preparedness; the role of data; climate change and bushfire mitigation; cyber security; and more. It was great having leaders from across the infrastructure sectors, including water, energy and technology, represented in this discussion.
The final event Future of Infrastructure was a great way to wrap up all of the topics that were covered over the Summit, as we took a look at what's next for the infrastructure industry, with our Session Partner OSIsoft.
Yong The, Regional Manager, Oceania at OSIsoft, said that when you evaluate the challenges we face for the next decade, they affect our economies and society more than ever before.
“We now must worry about how weather, pandemics, cyber attacks, and environmental requirements impact on our ability to provide available, reliable and safe infrastructure. The Future of Infrastructure conference is a tool to share and learn about facing these challenges.
“We know there is a connected flow of data that helps us meet these new challenges, and this event helps us connect with our peers and partners to share ideas and fight these challenges as a collective team.”
Nicola Grayson, CEO of Consult Australia, delivered the keynote presentation on how the infrastructure industry can meet economic recovery demand in 2021 and beyond.
Her presentation looked at industry capacity when it comes to civil engineering roles and the challenges the industry is facing when it comes to people and culture, as well as what Australia’s infrastructure industry could be doing to support increasing demand and ensuring we have enough skilled workers.
Our second speaker Genéne Kleppe, CEO of Digital Twinning Australia, then explored what value chain synchronising digital twins will look like in the future and why their data will continue to generate equity.
Digital twins are continuing to increase in use and popularity across different infrastructure sectors and Genéne gave a fantastic breakdown of what’s next, as well as a few case studies from utilities and transport.
Genéne’s presentation also linked back to points made by speakers from across all four of the Critical Infrastructure Summit conferences which was a great addition to tie everything together.
The event concluded with our industry panel on building our future cities and ensuring they are connected, sustainable and accessible, which was sponsored by Nearmap. Our panellists were Damian Gould, CEO, Building Queensland; Marion Terrill, Transport and Cities Program Director, Grattan Institute Melbourne; and Stephen Neale, Product Manager – 3D, Nearmap.
These panellists offered great insight into the future of how we plan our cities and covered a wide variety of topics.
These included honest thoughts on the infrastructure-led recovery; the biggest risks facing Australia’s infrastructure in 2021; the technological advancements that will have the biggest impact; the
management and maintenance of existing assets; what makes a good business case; and opportunities to increase sustainability and accessibility.
With this iteration of the Critical Infrastructure Summit now finished, Infrastructure magazine has now started planning its next virtual event.
Running under the Critical Infrastructure Summit umbrella, our next event is the Critical Infrastructure: Digitisation Series. This series will feature two Virtual Conferences in August, looking at different sides of digital transformation: the digital technologies that are being employed in the design and construction of infrastructure; as well as the infrastructure being built to enable Australia’s digital transformation.
This is a huge topic in the industry right now so keep an eye out on the Infrastructure website and weekly newsletter for more details when the event is launched. Missed
assetmanagement FOR CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
All four of the Virtual Conferences were recorded, and registered delegates are able to watch them on demand on the official event platform Hubilo. If you’re not already registered, head to www.critical-infrastructure.com.au to sign up for access.
At its heart is the industrial boiler, a process-critical workhorse that must always be completely reliable. With an agile approach to problem solving, Byworth’s competitive advantage has been protected by a commitment to continuous improvement; reducing customers’ fuel use, increasing operating efficiency and minimising downtime.
In early 2020, Byworth Boilers will open a £2 million extension to its manufacturing headquarters in Keighley, West Yorkshire, in the UK.
Measurement and control are the means to get every last drop of fuel efficiency, by keeping every element of pressure, level and temperature in perfect balance. Byworth’s relationship with SICK has grown from initial research and development trials of a simple pressure switch, to the point where Byworth has standardised SICK instruments for various processes across its boiler ranges.
SICK’s PBS pressure transmitter, LFP guided wave radar level sensor, TBS temperature switch and DOSIC ultrasonic flowmeter are used for new systems as well as for replacement parts, and the FTS calorimetric flow switch has recently completed successful tests in the research and development centre.
Jason Atkinson, Head of Technical and Product Development, stresses that while performance of the technology is important, it’s supply chain relationships that are mission critical.
“From the customers’ point of view, it’s the Byworth Boiler that performs, not any one of the instruments or control systems on it. So our suppliers need to be long-term partners.”
GUIDED WAVE RADAR TECHNOLOGY FOR SENSING WATER LEVEL IN THE BOILER
Mr Atkinson said the LFP guided wave radar gives them a much more reliable, accurate level, so they can run their feedwater system much more tightly.
From the first industrial revolution to the fourth, inspirational change has been driven by a willingness to embrace the unconventional and cross-traditional industry boundaries. A partnership between one of the UK’s oldest and bestknown boiler manufacturers, Byworth Boilers, and SICK has helped fine-tune its boiler house controls to save up to seven per cent on customer fuel bills.
“We do not get so many swings in water level. The more the water level fluctuates, the less heat efficient the system is,” Mr Atkinson said.
SUCCESSFUL TRIALS WITH DOSIC ULTRASONIC FLOW SENSOR CONFIRM COMPETITIVENESS AND ACCURACY
Byworth’s successful trials of the DOSIC ultrasonic flow sensor from SICK confirmed its competitiveness and accuracy, so it has been introduced for feed tank metering on the smaller boiler range.
“On the Unity systems we have done studies that demonstrate fuel savings of seven per cent annually, over and above what is achieved just by installing a new plant. That’s based around how we control everything from one unit in the boiler house, rather than in separate, individual processes –how we sequence boilers, how we modulate them, how we bring them online and so on,” Mr Atkinson said.
“Standardising on sensors helps us to control the data coming from different parts of the boiler house a lot more finely.”
INTELLIGENTLY ON TRACK AT ANY TIME.
Maneuvering carefully and improving work processes: Manuel’s job is to make mobile work machines intelligent. Thereby, he relies on SICK’s longtime experience with intelligent sensors. Smart solutions provide information on position, inclination and speed, warn about collisions, and keep machines on course. Connected in a clever way, these kinds of information lead to more efficiency, less downtime and lower repair costs. Manuel has recognized the potential of automation. And thanks to SICK, he is already today on the right track and prepared for the future, long before daily life might overrun him. We think that’s intelligent. www.sick.com/mobile_automation
Infrastructure Australia released its yearly Priority List – highlighting the projects that the government should be investing in and key industry trends. In 2021 and beyond, infrastructure opportunities lie in new sources of energy, water assets, regional and remote communities, and developing export gateways at Australia’s ports, among other key proposals.
For the first time ever, Infrastructure Australia (IA) launched its Priority List with a virtual event that saw more than 800 people tune in across Australia.
Hosted by Infrastructure magazine’s Managing Editor, Laura Harvey, the event featured an interactive Q&A session with Infrastructure Australia’s CEO, Romilly Madew, and Chief of Infrastructure Prioritisation, Robin Jackson; and a keynote address by Infrastructure Australia Chair, Julieanne Alroe.
The 2021 Infrastructure Priority List identifies six High Priority Projects, 17 Priority Projects, 48 High Priority Initiatives and 109 Priority Initiatives. This year’s list includes the addition of 44 new proposals to the list, which is the largest number of new proposals ever added.
Ten projects have also moved off the Priority List and into the construction phase, including the M4 Motorway Upgrade (NSW), METRONET Morley-Ellenbrook Line (WA), and sections of the Bruce Highway and M1 Pacific Motorway (QLD).
Infrastructure Australia Chair, Julieanne Alroe, said the Priority List identifies a $59 billion pipeline of nationally significant investment opportunities for governments to progress in the near, medium and long term.
The main areas of investment opportunities identified by the 2021 Infrastructure Priority List that are of national significance include:
Export gateways – investment in ports and freight
In her keynote address, Ms Alroe said the List includes opportunities to develop pathways to support our international competitiveness, as the key theme this year is to support Australia’s economic recovery from the pandemic.
“Alongside many of the existing proposals to support our growing national freight task, there are new investments identified to improve both the capacity and the efficiency of ports across the country,” Ms Alroe said.
Some of the projects to help do this include:
♦ Western Sydney Freight Line and Intermodal Terminal (NSW)
♦ Rail access to Webb Dock (VIC)
♦ Australian Marine Complex infrastructure capacity (WA)
♦ Port of Burnie capacity (TAS)
♦ Hobart Port precinct capacity improvements (TAS)
♦ Common user infrastructure at the Middle Arm Precinct (NT)
New energy sources
Ms Madew said that this year’s List reflects the diversity needed in the country’s energy systems and grids, which is highlighted with the inclusion of a number of different proposals.
“The Priority List really recognises that Australia, and the world, is in an energy transition.
“You’ve just got to think about the housetop solar that we’ve seen and the boom in housetop solar in Australia, so [it’s clear] we really are moving our energy sources.”
She said proposals around hydrogen are mentioned in this year’s List, as well as new sources of renewable energy in the Northern Territory, and projects focusing on the reliability, affordability and sustainability of our grid.
“It really reflects and acknowledges the work by AEMO, what they’ve picked up in their integrated system and
the importance of the stability of our grid. So we need to recognise new forms of energy are coming in, and think how that fits, and ensure that we’re prepared for it and that there is a plan,” Ms Madew said.
Ms Alroe agreed that it is critical for economic recovery to invest and seize on the opportunities around new sources of energy.
“The Priority List recommends investing into dispatchable energy sources to ensure the reliability and security of our energy networks, and identifying a program of works to provide renewable energy to remote communities in the Northern Territory. Also, delivering infrastructure to enable hydrogen exports,” Ms Alroe said.
Water security is also a key priority for national investment identified on the List, with Ms Alroe saying, “We are pleased to see progress on this front across Australia, but there is still more to do.”
One of the High Priority Initiatives supporting this is the Greater Sydney water security initiative, while Priority Initiatives include South East Melbourne recycled water supply infrastructure upgrades (VIC); Bowen Basin production water supply (QLD); Northern South Australia productive water security (SA); and Barossa Valley Region water supply (SA).
Development in regional and remote communities – including increasing digital connectivity and digital health services
Opportunities in regional and remote Australia are a major focus in this year’s Priority List, reflecting social changes that occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Previous and ongoing work by Infrastructure Australia has acknowledged the importance of remote regions and the challenges that are felt across Australia, including access to social and economic infrastructure such as healthcare, education and digital connectivity.
Then COVID-19 created further challenges for remote Australians.
“As COVID was continuing over months, people were moving permanently. This wasn’t just temporary, this was permanent – people were moving to our regions and that really meant we had to look at that enabling infrastructure in the regions to ensure they could take this increased capacity,” Ms Madew said.
“Our children and our young adults went online with their learning and there was clearly a digital divide around Australia in regional, rural and remote Australia. The children and the young adults in those areas didn’t have digital access like they were having in our urban areas.
“The second change, again linked to digital, was around health – digital health and telehealth. We really saw a permanent change in the use of online health services such as telehealth and the importance of that. It really supports people in our regional and remote areas – they don’t have to travel and they have access to online healthcare. The benefits of this are just huge.
“So, it’s ensuring that we maintain, or highlight, the types of regional connectivity infrastructure that’s required to keep promoting regional.”
Ms Madew said that infrastructure growth in regional areas actually helps to take the pressure off our cities. Not only growth in remote areas, but also in cities such as Wollongong
and Newcastle, or Adelaide and Canberra, increased investment can further support Australia’s major cities.
Social infrastructure – including housing demand
Investment in the social infrastructure sector is also critical in supporting the quality of life for all Australians as the country will continue to face new shocks and crises.
Ms Alroe said the pandemic made it clear how much impact secure housing has on the capacity of communities to weather a crisis.
“There has been a 37 per cent increase in unmet social housing demand over the past decade, unmet demand for Aboriginal housing alone is expected to result in an undersupply of more than 12,500 homes by 2031.
“Appropriate housing underpins the improved outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and it’s a key target of the national agreement on Closing the Gap.
“In this context, I’m pleased to announce that the New South Wales Social Housing Program is joining the Priority List this year, supporting the existing national initiative to improve remote housing quality and reduce overcrowding,” Ms Alroe said.
Australians have had very different travel patterns over the last year due to COVID, from people working from home, or choosing to drive more, but Infrastructure Australia’s Chief of Infrastructure Prioritisation, Robin Jackson, said that IA believes this will only be a temporary impact and we still need to be planning for the future.
“We definitely do think we need to continue to invest in these public transport networks. We’ve got a bit of a pause on migration, giving us that time to breathe and get the planning in place to get the right infrastructure.
“It’s also a good opportunity to make better use of the assets we have already as well. On the Priority List this year we’re listing Level Crossing Removal Programs in three locations, and that’s really about getting more out of the assets we already have,” Mr Jackson said.
Mr Jackson and his team are the people behind the Priority List and he said that it’s a long process each year to put this vital document together.
“We start the process around July and August with a call for submissions from all levels of government and a wide range of stakeholders. We move through the process of evaluating those to identify which are the most nationally important, which will have the most impact on the economy and on society as well,” Mr Jackson said.
“We’re hopeful this list can help lock in some of the good things we’ve seen coming forward, the new ways people are choosing to interact, and where they live and work.”
Mr Jackson also had some advice for infrastructure professionals and communities on how to put your proposal together to have the best chance of inclusion in IA’s Priority List
“The first place to look is to our website, as we provide a lot of information there on how to make a submission. We provide toolkits, checklists and templates, and things to help guide the kind of information that we need to see, and it’s really about the evidence base. They don’t need to be huge submissions, succinct and brief submissions we really appreciate,” he said.
“It’s about finding that balance of the analysis and the evidence to show that there is a significant problem there. We provide some information as well about how we define national significance and we look at that as the size of impact on the economy and that should be around $30 million per annum or more.”
Another key point discussed in the virtual event, and evident throughout the Priority List is what Ms Madew referred to as ‘sweating the asset’.
“Infrastructure is a long-term investment and we have so many different forms of infrastructure around Australia – road, rail, ports, airports and so on. What you see this year is a number of initiatives and projects that are actually existing infrastructure looking to either enhance its connectivity, or enhance its capacity.
“There are three level crossings, and also five ports [on the List aiming to] increase the capacity of ports around Australia. Newcastle Airport has been included, so that’s really looking at increasing the capacity of Newcastle Airport. It’s really important to understand it’s about spending our money wisely on those assets and it’s not just about new assets. It’s a great opportunity around our existing assets and how we can use them better and smarter,” Ms Madew said.
Given the issues that infrastructure assets have faced and are continuing to, including drought, flood, bushfires, then COVID, it is certainly a challenging time for the industry to not only deal with current demand but plan for the future, but given the diversity of the projects identified in this year’s Priority List, it’s also an exciting time ahead for opportunities and investments.
“We are at a crossroads, with abundant opportunities to deliver infrastructure that responds to community needs. The Priority List with its evidence-based proposals and a key focus on community outcome is a critical place to start,” Ms Alroe said.
Australia’s major project activity has eased during the pandemic, but the outlook has improved considerably, particularly for renewables.
The cyclical and structural changes triggered by the pandemic have both positive and negative implications for Australia’s major infrastructure project pipeline in the near term and over the longer term. Although some sectors will be more affected than others, the pandemic’s impacts are pervasive, touching everything from transport to electricity to resources to nonresidential property.
According to ANZ Research’s Australian Major Projects report published in February, Australian major project1 activity is set to ramp up quickly over the next two years, with an increase of up to $21 billion year-on-year in 2021-22 alone. By 2022-23, the potential investment pipeline swells to almost $93 billion. If achieved, this would be the highest level since the mining boom in the early 2010s.
Given the high degree of uncertainty around the outlook though, it’s unlikely the full pipeline will be realised. In the private sector, a number of major projects have already been deferred or cancelled, and more cancellations may come if private developers aren’t confident enough about the outlook to commit to large investments.
In the public sector, some projects have been fast-tracked, but some of the expected rise in investment is due to cost escalations, rather than additional projects. The mega, high-complexity projects underway and in the pipeline carry material risk.
While the outlook is positive, major project activity has underwhelmed in 2019-20 and 2020-21, at a time when the Australian economy could have done with some extra stimulus. Major project investment is estimated to have fallen eight per cent year-on-year in 2019-20. While it may pick up a little in 2020-21, activity is expected to remain below the 2018-19 level.
Still, the ramp up in major project activity looks well timed as direct fiscal support measures through COVID wind down, including the $90 billion Job Keeper program ending in March.
A number of potentially major structural shifts could have long-term ramifications for demand for transport infrastructure and travel patterns.
The closure of national borders to permanent and temporary migrants and international students has hit Australia’s future population. Stay-at-home restrictions will result in a permanent increase in people working from home, as well as some population decentralisation as people move further from cities into suburban and regional areas.
As such, the costs and benefits of some capital city transport projects in their current form may need to be reassessed in the wake of the pandemic; although there has not been any indication changes are being considered.
We expect a sharp rise in road and rail investment over the next two years, driven by public sector backed mega road and rail projects in Melbourne and Sydney. Consequently, there are concerns around capacity constraints. Although producer price index growth for engineering construction eased considerably through 2019 and 2020, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, NAB data show more businesses economy-wide are reporting labour and materials constraints on output.
Increased cost estimates on transport projects are also likely a reflection of heightened perceived and actual risk around these complex projects, following experiences on projects such as the West Gate Tunnel and Melbourne Metro, rather than being solely due to competition for materials, equipment and skilled labour. Across just five rail projects, cost estimates are up $17 billion compared with our 2019 report.
Going forward, capacity constraints could escalate quickly. More competition is expected from the residential sector, where low rates, Homebuilder and state/territory grants have strengthened the construction outlook. Global supply chain disruptions remain a risk, although this risk should ease as the vaccine rollout continues.
Global infrastructure stimulus will increase competition for a limited pool of skilled workers, materials and equipment. And closed borders will increase the likelihood and/or extent of skills mismatches, particularly in the near-term.
The pandemic has also prompted an acceleration globally in public targets and action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, driving a larger wave of investments in green technologies and infrastructure. Trade policy is also shifting with the European Union (EU) progressing its plan for a carbon border adjustment mechanism.
Three of Australia’s largest trading partners – Japan and South Korea by 2050 and China by 2060 – have joined other large economies including the EU and the UK to commit to net zero emissions and the US has announced a new emissions reduction target of 50-52 per cent by 2030. All Australian states and territories now have a formal target to achieve net zero emissions by or before 2050, and more and more large Australian companies are making net zero commitments.
This has brightened the outlook for Australian major renewable project investment considerably after a disappointing couple of years. In 2021-22, the potential pipeline could almost double to average more than $11 billion per year over the rest of the forecast horizon.
Figure 4. Renewables major project investment, by stage
Some significant steps were taken in 2020 to invest in renewable energy generation, transmission and storage. New South Wales saw a remarkable level of interest in its first proposed Renewable Energy Zone (REZ), Central-West Orana, and will fast-track approvals on transmission network upgrades. The state also has plans for four more REZs.
Queensland announced $145 million towards creating three REZs and $500 million for a Renewable Energy Fund, and Victoria allocated $540 million to develop six REZs.
Victoria announced its second Victorian Renewable Energy Target (VRET) Auction and plans to build a new big battery, the largest in the southern hemisphere. Along with formalising its net zero target, the Northern Territory approved the procurement of a $30 million battery energy storage system (BESS) for the Darwin-Katherine grid. The ACT has also allocated $100 million for a big battery as part of a $300 million climate change package. Western Australia announced a $66 million renewable energy package, including the installation of nine BESSs in regional communities.
Tasmania reached its 100 per cent renewable electricity target in late 2020, two years early, and announced it will double its target to 200 per cent by 2040. South Australia achieved 100 per cent solar power for one hour in October, and has pencilled in a 500 per cent renewable energy target for 2050, aiming to export interstate and internationally.
We estimate that New South Wales has the largest pipeline of projects over the forecast horizon, underpinned by Snowy Hydro 2.0. Queensland also has a particularly strong pipeline, with a number of $1 billion-plus projects moving towards the construction stage. The South Australian pipeline also looks rosy if the $1.6 billion Ceres Wind Farm on the Yorke Peninsula goes ahead. This project was approved in 2019 and would link to Adelaide via submarine cable.
major project investment, by state and territory
Governments are also moving to address inadequate transmission infrastructure, which is a constraint on the renewable energy mix and a factor in the disappointing levels of activity in 2019-20 and the current financial year. The Queensland-New South Wales interconnector upgrade began construction in mid-2020. The FID on Copper String 2.0 in Queensland is due in 2021, after being fast-tracked as part of the COVID recovery. This is a prerequisite for the $2 billion Mount James wind farm (which would be the largest in Australia) to go ahead.
The New South Wales and South Australian Governments will fund Project EnergyConnect, a $2 billion electricity connector between the two states, which will enable more renewable projects to connect to the grid. This was one of three new transmission projects that attracted $250 million in acceleration funding from the Federal Government, along with the Marinus Link between Tasmania and Victoria and the Victoria to New South Wales Interconnector West. These latter two projects are still some way off.
Green hydrogen production and export together with direct renewable energy exports are becoming more realistic within the next decade. The $22 billion Sun Cable Project in the Northern Territory expects financial close in 2023, with plans to export renewable energy to Singapore via submarine cable from 2027. The Asian Renewable Energy Hub in Western Australia is planning to start construction in 2026, with plans for large-scale green hydrogen products, including for export. The Hub would also provide an opportunity for Australia to decarbonise mining and mineral processing.
Figure 1 Source: Federal, state and territory budgets; Dept of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources; Cordell Connect; Bloomberg New Energy Finance; Clean Energy Council; company reports; Deloitte Access Economics; ANZ Research.
Figure 2 Source: Federal, state and territory budgets; Dept of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources; Cordell Connect; Bloomberg New Energy Finance; Clean Energy Council; company reports; Deloitte Access Economics; ANZ Research.
Figure 3 Source: Federal, state and territory budgets; Deloitte Access Economics; ANZ Research.
Figure 4 Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance; Clean Energy Council; Deloitte Access Economics; ANZ Research.
Figure 5 Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance; Clean Energy Council; Deloitte Access Economics; ANZ Research.
The Australian Rail Track Corporation is making a strategic investment in Mobile LiDAR and Imagery datasets to modernise its asset management practices.
The Interstate Asset Capture Project will adopt a ‘collect once, use many’ philosophy as it uses the collected spatial information to enhance the immediate and evolving data requirements of critical ARTC projects.
ARTC Interstate Network General Manager, Brian Green, said the ARTC team performed a survey across the entire ARTC interstate network which required detailed and careful planning as well as close collaboration between project stakeholders to ensure that the highest quality outcomes would be met.
The whole-of-network survey, combined with existing data in Ellipse and technology-based visualisation solutions, also allowed ARTC to create a Digital Twin of the entire ARTC rail network, allowing staff to undertake virtual site visits within a 3D panoramic imagery environment.
Mr Green said that to support ARTC’s new direction of moving from a “time and tonnes” to “risk and condition” model to underpin strategic technology investments, ARTC needed to create and leverage foundational spatial datasets for its asset management systems and other projects.
“These datasets would include a comprehensive spatial inventory of assets and digital track centrelines that would be validated for the business to use,” Mr Green said.
“To create these foundational datasets, ARTC has worked closely with technology partner Agonics to design and plan a survey program covering 9,000km of interstate track.
“We chose to work with Agonics due to their team’s deep experience in working at scale across rail networks, their proven Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS) and visualisation technologies, and expertise in converting complex rail engineering requirements into working solutions.”
Mr Green said ARTC has taken a strong standards-driven approach and is investing significant time to develop and test new field capture standards which will now be the benchmark for field data capture across the organisation.
“Our new datasets are accurate, reliable, trusted and consolidated, allowing ARTC to move from a traditional asset management strategy to a digitally-robust, data-driven asset management system,” Mr Green said.
“We started capturing the data in July 2019 and despite a short suspension of the project during the national COVID-19 lockdown, we recently celebrated the successful completion of all field recording activities with the remaining digital datasets due for delivery later this year.”
The primary purpose of the Interstate Asset Capture Project is to modernise ARTC’s asset management practices and support key asset management initiatives including the development of an ARTC GIS Model, Linear Referencing System and the deployment of Ellipse Mobility eWorks.
Spatially accurate and validated datasets of asset and track centrelines are a key enabler for critical internal projects at ARTC. This includes the deployment of ARTC’s electronic track worker system or Electronic Track Access (eTAP).
The output from the Asset Capture Project was a critical component in ensuring the success and timely implementation of ARTC’s eTAP app.
“It was introduced to improve rail safety for the NSW Network,” Mr Green said.
The core network asset datasets that eTAP requires are significant and detailed. These did not readily exist at the required level of detail at the outset of the eTAP project.
Mr Green said other internal projects are benefitting from the project’s digital datasets, including the Advanced Train Management System (ATMS), which recently went ‘live’ in South Australia and will eventually be rolled out nationwide.
The ATMS project will benefit from digital track centrelines provided by the Interstate Asset Capture Project, as these are a key input to communications-based train control systems. The decision support platform (DSP) used to analyse information and support intervention decisions relies on a network model made possible by the linear referencing system and asset capture in the GIS.
Mr Green said the Digital Twin supports safer work practices as, in many cases, staff are no longer required to physically travel to and enter the rail corridor.
“This is particularly useful for works planning activities by saving time and ensuring that worksite locations are appropriate for the works being planned.
“In addition, digitisation has allowed ARTC to reduce the need for manual measurements of infrastructure with the Asset Capture Project delivering automated clearance assessments across the 9,000km of interstate network.
“By reducing the need for manual measurements of clearances, staff will spend less time in the danger zone, thus further improving safety outcomes for the business.
“It is estimated that on the NSW Interstate Network alone, more than 6,000 fewer man-hours will be spent in the danger zone performing manual clearance measurements.”
The Interstate Asset Capture Project has fostered changes in ARTC’s business practices by incorporating and adopting new services and products into routine day-to-day activities. By taking a whole-of-network approach to collect and process datasets, ARTC is able to meet, not only its immediate data requirements, but also the evolving data requirements of its internal customers.
The strategic investment addresses the pitfalls of traditional project-by-project approaches to data acquisition and storage, where completion deadlines compete with the ongoing needs of the business for accurate, validated asset data.
“This conscious investment in a whole network approach has been key to ARTC’s success in implementing new technologies and new systems across its huge network,” Mr Green said.
“We made a decision to invest in data for our business because we understood its immense value to the organisation and its importance in helping us to live our No Harm, Future Thinking and Results values. The Interstate Asset Capture Project is setting ARTC up for an exciting future, where we can service our customers more efficiently than ever before.
“The validated datasets being produced by Agonics and the ARTC project team are even finding applications outside of ARTC where partner organisations are able to leverage the datasets for a range of engineering investigations producing better outcomes overall.”
The COVID-19 pandemic struck at the heart of how cities work. Lockdowns denied the connections that drive our urban economies and the communities they serve.
Now, as we plan our recovery, we have to ensure that we have learned the lessons of the past year and recognise that we should see the pandemic experience as something that has accelerated pre-existing trends, and exposed weaknesses, in how our cities function.
For national government, this means getting the framework for a national approach to urban policy right.
The approach Anthony Albanese announced in March 2021 would do just that – fixing the broken machinery that has held back the development of our cities. With cities generating around 80 per cent of Australia’s GDP, this is vital.
Labor will implement six measures to reframe cities policy in the wake of the pandemic and the recession:
1. Transform City Deals into genuine City Partnerships
2. Revitalise our CBDs
3. Renew the independent role of Infrastructure Australia in urban planning
4. Deliver a new National Urban Policy framework
5. Publish annual State of the Cities Report
6. Give local government a voice in a meaningful National Cabinet process
City Deals were intended to bring together all three levels of government, with the private sector, to realise shared visions for our cities. But this aspiration hasn’t been realised. There is little evidence of genuine, city-shaping collaboration. None are generating the private investment they should be.
Real city partnerships are required to turn this around, and to secure more productive, liveable and sustainable cities.
Our approach recognises that an imperative must be to revive our CBDs. And that this means reimagining them, and how they work. Over the past decade, around half the new jobs we’ve generated have been located in and around the centres of Melbourne and Sydney.
We can’t assume that this situation will simply right itself, nor that just pleading with office workers to return to their desks will do the job.
We need a plan for our city centres, which recognises the changes likely to be wrought by a shift towards the workplace as a place of collaboration rather than of task-performance, and by the rise of dispersed or hybrid work. Labor’s vision is for equally vibrant – but different – city centres.
The economics of agglomeration haven’t changed, but new opportunities are presenting themselves as well as new perspectives of pre-existing challenges like congestion, and the impact on the infrastructure requirements of cities – most obviously transit.
The latest report by the Property Council and Ernst and Young, Reimagining Our Economic Powerhouses, makes clear that all levels of government and business must work together to revitalise our CBDs.
What’s missing here, though, is national leadership, compounded by the decision of the Morrison Government to deny local government its rightful and necessary place around the National Cabinet table. We can get ahead of the game, but we need to bring all affected and interested parties together.
More than half a century ago, former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam said, “Practically every major national problem relates to cities. A national government which cuts itself off from responsibility for the nation's cities is cutting itself off from the nation's real life.” He was correct then, and right now this is even more important, and more pressing.
Complementary to this work on CBDs is a focus on the other side of the dispersed work equation – the chance to secure thriving localised economies, rebalancing work within our cities.
To take on board the experiences of 2020 to consider how infrastructure, including social infrastructure, can address the gaps exposed during lockdown and sustain, indeed drive, twenty-minute neighbourhoods.
The work of the proposed Cities and Suburbs Unit within Infrastructure Australia will be significant here. This new unit will make recommendations to the government on the design of a new National Urban Policy framework, informed by expert evidence and community feedback. It will be bottom up, not a top down model.
The Cities and Suburbs Unit will measure the progress and performance of our cities, helping to identify the specific initiatives of local councils and state planning authorities that are effectively working to create more productive and sustainable communities.
We understand that local problems require local solutions, and big problems require buy-in and coordinated investment at the local level to work in the national interest. We need to apply rigour to places, not just to projects. Without this, any broad vision for our cities will wither on the vine.
This goes for sustainability, too. There is of course no greater long-term problem to Australia’s cities than climate change.
Major flooding in Sydney a little over a year after the city was choked by toxic smoke from bushfires, brought into sharp focus the challenge of making our cities more sustainable and resilient to future shocks. However, sustainability has been
largely overlooked as a key pillar of good urban policy under the current City Deal framework.
Cities around the world are taking steps to adapt to climate change, while Australia’s cities risk being left behind.
Building more sustainable cities will be a key focus for an Albanese Labor Government because it’s the key to better lives for the vast majority of Australians. We won’t miss the opportunity currently being squandered by the Morrison Government in making our recovery from the COVID recession a sustainable one. We will listen to the science, to industry, to investors and to the OECD, which is urging a Green Transformation.
So, how can we make our cities more sustainable?
Through coordinated planning for this, bringing together localised innovation into a national framework, and by making our cities smarter, with technological solutions deployed to address a wide range of challenges: improved energy efficiency, reduced environmental pollution, better water usage and giving people a healthier environment in which to live.
As Anthony Albanese has said, “If we recognise the challenges and opportunities... we can harness the urban transformation in a way that will help us build back stronger from the pandemic and the recession”.
The dimensions of these challenges, indeed these opportunities, are vast. And so must be the scope of our appetite to reshape our cities to make them more productive, sustainable and liveable.
Infrastructure projects come with many challenges and very often one of those challenges is managing stakeholders.
Knowing how to convert difficult stakeholders from pessimists to partners can mean the difference between a successful project with good PR and one that gets bogged down, running over time and over budget.
1. Identify your stakeholders properly
Identifying your stakeholders at an early stage helps keep your project on track. One of the most common reasons a project goes off course and stakeholder communication breaks down is a stakeholder was not identified and comes in mid-project with extra requirements and requests that haven’t been addressed. Use a stakeholder communication plan or matrix to identify key stakeholders and their impact on project success right from the start
2. Establish trust
Information = trust. Understanding what is important to your stakeholders helps to craft communications that will build long-term trust. So collect as much information as possible about your stakeholders. Use a variety of data collection approaches including personal meetings, ‘town halls’, interviews, surveys etc. to gather a range of relevant information. Your purpose is to determine your stakeholder’s goals, their preferred communication and how often, and identify their concerns. Just the act of meeting and listening to your stakeholders, without trying to convince them, will start the trust-building process.
3. Keep stakeholders informed
Keeping stakeholders appropriately informed is key to getting and keeping them on board. However, not everyone needs to hear everything. Document how your stakeholders want to be kept informed, the frequency of communication, project interest levels and their expectations from the project. Then moderate their requests with their importance to the success of the project. With this information, you can plan your communications and address your individual stakeholder needs and their impact on success.
4. Address difficult stakeholders directly
Most projects have difficult stakeholders, but it’s how you address them that’s important. While some challenge is positive, as it brings about new ideas and thinking, some stakeholders can simply be negative and derail the project. Before acting, validate their potential impact on project success as your response must be proportional to that impact. For high impact stakeholders, deal with them directly. Identify the root cause of the problem, and discuss and get feedback directly so you can achieve a resolution and move on with your project. In this case, direct communication, without other project stakeholders, will often resolve problems quickly.
5. Work through solutions with stakeholders
Once the general stakeholder issues are identified, work with them to find a solution. Often the stakeholder has already identified a solution to their problem. If the solution fits with the overall project, go with it. That will help reduce friction and regain their support for the project. If the stakeholder doesn’t already have a solution, then, where possible, work through it with them to identify a compromise that works for both parties. Ensure the impact of the solution can be measured.
Swift Digital works with public and private sector companies – including Government organisations and the Utility and Infrastructure sector, to help improve their communications and stakeholder management. Improve your stakeholder communications with Swift Digital's stakeholder strategy plan. Get yours at www.swiftdigital.com.au/infrastructure or scan the code. For more information contact us today on 1300 878 289 or email info@swiftdigital.com.au
COVID-19 impacted multiple industry sectors, but one of the hardest hit was the airport industry. During the recent State of Play Virtual Conference, part of the 2021 Critical Infrastructure Summit, James Goodwin, CEO of the Australian Airports Association, took part in a panel discussion on the current state of the infrastructure industry, and discussed in depth how the airport industry has coped with, and learnt valuable lessons from, the current situation.
The Australian Airport Association is the national organisation that represents the interest of over 330 airports and aerodromes across Australia, covering both small regional airstrips and major domestic and international gateways.
During the Critical Infrastructure: State of Play conference panel discussion, Mr Goodwin said that throughout the pandemic one of the major things that has become clear is just how critical airports are, and that even while passenger numbers are down, airports still play a major role.
This includes in the freight industry, helping repatriate tens of thousands of Australians, assisting essential workers travel, and shipping vital personal protective equipment (PPE) to where they are needed the most.
“Despite the passenger numbers being down, essential freight has needed to come in and out of the country, and we’ve needed to get essential workers around the country, particularly in hotspots, the military, medical professionals and so on,” Mr Goodwin said.
“We’ve needed airports to do that [and] we’ve stayed open to allow that to occur. It's an interesting reminder that not every aircraft is full of holiday makers; that we still need the critical infrastructure of airports to be able to maintain the country and the economy as we do.”
Over the past year it has become clear that the airport industry has gone through drastic changes as Australia –and the world – continue to battle and recover from the pandemic. Mr Goodwin said that during the worst month of COVID-19 in Australia, approximately April 2020, domestic passenger numbers were down by 95 per cent –a staggering amount.
Mr Goodwin said that this clearly showed that airports needed to do more to ensure they had other revenue options besides passengers that they could rely on during hard times.
“I think what we’ve seen is that certainly critical infrastructure and airports can’t rely just on aeronautical revenue. We saw that international passenger numbers are down 98 per cent.
“It was very clear that airports need to make sure that they’ve got other revenue streams, that there are other parts of their business that they can rely on and diversify to make sure that they can continue to operate to provide that essential, critical infrastructure of the airfield.
“For instance, one capital city airport had 19 passengers come through the terminal in the 20 hours that they were open. So that highlights how uneconomical it was to be even operating that airfield, but for those 19 passengers that was critical that they were able to enter and leave that capital city.
“We need to look to the future, but we need to make sure there [are] other forms of business revenue, other forms of infrastructure that we can rely on to make sure that those airfields were able to stay open.”
Another area of change for airports is the uptake of technology, which has been further highlighted through the pandemic.
“Airports are going to be a different look and feel down the track and we’re already starting to see that. So being able to check in online, QR codes, and all of those sorts of things to make it easier and to stop queuing up, that’s what we're also going to see – technology will take over some of those things down the track,” Mr Goodwin said.
“The sector has been doing it tough, losing about $320 million a month in lost revenue. But what I would say is the people in the sector are doing it tougher, and we thank them for being so resilient and staying with the sector,” Mr Goodwin said.
“It's a sector that has a lot of regulations, requires a lot of things like security screening and so on, so things like Job Keeper and initiatives to keep people part of the sector have been vital to ensure that we are ready for that recovery, whether you're working for an airline or the airports or the contractors that assist with the running of an airfield.
“We want to get back to recovery but what everyone is a bit in fear about is what's going to be the new normal? Will we ever get back to 2019 levels of passenger and aircraft movements? We’ve seen the working from home, the digital meetings and so on, how much is that going to shave off what was normal in 2019?
“Things like having a separate domestic and international terminal has not worked particularly well when you're trying to manage what we might call a green passenger, red passenger or amber passenger, depending on whether they’re going into hotel quarantine or whether they’re not.”
Mr Goodwin said these aspects, as well as other crucial ones like customs and security screening are vital pinch points that will have to become more flexible to ensure safety for everyone in the future. He also said that new builds, like the new Western Sydney Airport that is scheduled to open in 2026, will be able to learn vital lessons from the current situation and apply them to their own operations.
“Western Sydney Airport, being such a new build, is able to look and learn from all of these things that are going on right now and hopefully respond to that so that we will have one of the best and most modern and well-equipped airports in the world.”
Mr Goodwin said that what we are learning right now will have long-lasting impacts on the future of the aviation industry, from what the physical airport will look like, to how technology will interact and work with the assets we already have. Missed the Critical Infrastructure: State of Play Virtual Conference?
While the impacts of COVID-19 hit Australia’s aviation industry especially hard, Melbourne Airport has used this time to complete 64 construction projects since March 2020. The projects have added new infrastructure and amenities to the airport to support the overall passenger experience while also improving sustainability.
Melbourne Airport Chief of Infrastructure, Simon Gandy, said that despite COVID-19’s huge impact on travel, the airport had to remain open, so it focused its resources on a select group of projects that would future-proof operations.
“We took the opportunity of continuing some of the more intrusive construction works while the airport was quiet to be ready to welcome our airline customers and guests as they return,” Mr Gandy said.
“Having paused a number of our larger capacity projects, and with a significantly reduced capital program, we focused our resources on the projects that were essential to maintain safe and secure operations to enhance the traveller experience, and also those commercial projects that are assisting our property customers to rebound strongly from COVID.
Our reduced spend of $450 million over this COVID period provides a solid foundation on which to recover our business, and we will continue to manage with a clear focus on ensuring our prioritisation and pace of investment continues in concert with returning demand.”
International Arrivals Hall
Melbourne Airport completed an $85 million refurbishment of its International Arrivals Hall. The upgrade has created a more spacious and inviting environment ready to welcome more New Zealanders and future international guests.
The new international arrivals area is located in Terminal 2.
The Arrivals Hall is often the first impression of Melbourne that visitors have and it is where many reconnect with loved ones. Pre-COVID, Melbourne Airport welcomed around 17,500 international arrivals daily.
The hall includes more seating for those waiting for their loved ones, a larger dwelling area, an improved undercover taxi-wait zone, plus repositioned retail outlets.
This is the largest international terminal investment made by Melbourne Airport in the past five years and the project included the installation of a contemporary indoor façade spanning 420m² – the same size as the wing area of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
Mr Gandy said the modernised arrivals space was sure to impress overseas visitors when they return.
“The multi-million-dollar upgrade is spectacular and we’re confident it will leave a great first impression on our international guests, especially all the Kiwis that are about to touch down in Melbourne,” Mr Gandy said.
“The upgraded Arrivals Hall also makes it easier for people to connect with onward domestic flights, providing short connection times for passengers that need to walk between terminals.”
Melbourne Airport is upgrading and adding additional bathroom facilities across the entire terminal precinct, including parents’ rooms and service animal relief areas for those that rely on support animals. At this stage new facilities have been unveiled in Terminal 3, used by Virgin, while the next round of upgrades will take place inside Terminal 1.
Taxiway Zulu
Phase 1 of Taxiway Zulu was completed in 2021. Taxiway Zulu forms part of a broader airfield development program and is the largest single airfield investment for the airport since its opening in 1970.
The new taxiway network replaces aged critical infrastructure, improves aircraft movements in the airport’s northern precinct and will enable the future expansion of the international terminal and support the operations of a future third runway.
Mr Gandy said the Taxiway Zulu project is the largest airfield project the airport has implemented.
“Our Taxiway works ensure we can flow more aircraft without delay to and from our runways, while also providing the opportunity to create more aircraft parking in the future. It’s good news for our returning international airlines who will be looking for greater efficiency in their operations,” Mr Gandy said.
Melbourne Airport has strengthened the capacity of two existing guardhouses and built a third guardhouse to support airfield access. The updated guardhouses include a threelane tiered screening process and explosive trace detection facility which are all part of the screening process required for contractors to enter the airfield.
The airport delivered upgrades to security fencing – critical infrastructure that was approaching the end of its useful life. The fencing is not only a protection for the airport asset but also prevents wildlife from burrowing into the estate.
The solar farm is just one chapter in the airport’s strategy to reduce its carbon footprint. Environmentally, Melbourne is committed to growing the airport in a sustainable way to not only benefit the operation but also the airport community. The 12 megawatt solar farm took just over six months to complete and can generate enough power to support all four terminals.
Mr Gandy said the airport will continue to review and invest in energy solutions that deliver more sustainable outcomes and provide resilience to our airport operations.
“We are focused on playing our part to reduce carbon emissions and by adding this 12 megawatt farm we’re able to produce enough renewable energy to power all four passenger terminals,” Mr Gandy said.
"We are also looking to incorporate solar into all our new developments on the estate.”
The water treatment facility took six months to construct and it uses a series of processes to remove all solids in contaminated PFAS water on the airport estate.
“Our water treatment facility helps us manage PFAS by removing these contaminants which then enables us to reuse water elsewhere on our estate. The facility is 100 per cent powered by solar and we’re really proud to have invested in this environment and sustainability initiative,” Mr Gandy said.
Regional airports are critical to Australian industries such as tourism, resources, logistics and emergency services. In 2018, the Australian Airports Association (AAA) found that regional airports and the communities they served accounted for 45 per cent of Australia’s overall tourism industry. The AAA also found that, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, around 15 million passengers travelled through regional airports, with over 360,000 flights per year.
For example, Mildura Airport, in Victoria, is a vital cog in the region’s economy and is geographically important given its location on the New South Wales border and proximity to South Australia.
The airport provides critical connectivity for business and leisure travel. In the Murray region, where the Mildura airport is situated, tourism is the second largest employer, supporting over 18,000 jobs and contributing over $2 billion in direct expenditure to the local economy.
Facilitating more than just domestic travel and tourism, regional airports also house around 500 aircraft to be deployed for firefighting duties, support 4,450 jobs, and enable over 6,000 emergency evacuations per year.
The Balgo Hill Airport in the Kimberley region, Western Australia, is critical for facilitating emergency evacuations because of the remote area it services. In the past five years, the airport has seen 459 Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) landings.
The AAA has dubbed the regions as the “backbone” of Australia, and their access to markets, healthcare, export and produce, which are facilitated by regional airports, is thereby critical to the nation’s success and prosperity.
In 2018, the AAA, the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA), Regional Aviation Association of Australia (RAAA), and Australian Logistics Council (ALC), launched the Protect Regional Airports Association to seek direct Federal Government funding support for essential infrastructure at regional airports.
Australia is home to more than 400 civilian airports, with the majority of these located in regional areas. While these regional airports might be smaller than their city counterparts, their contribution to the regions they service, and Australia’s wider economy, is vital.
by Imogen Hartmann, Associate Editor, Monkey MediaThe Protect Regional Airports Association called on the Federal Government to establish a $100 million fund to be delivered over four years, using a co-contribution funding model in partnership with state and local governments.
The campaign ultimately resulted in a 2019-20 Federal Budget allocation, called the Regional Airports Program. The program produces competitive grants intended to improve safety, delivery of essential goods, healthcare and passenger air services, and enable more connectivity between Australia’s regions, domestic and global market opportunities.
The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic were felt across airports all around the country – and the world. An Airport Monitoring Report from the ACCC revealed that operating profits from four of Australia’s largest airports (Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney) hit a decade-low level following a dramatic fall in passengers during the crisis.
Australia’s regions were hit just as hard, with passenger numbers down by 70-90 per cent, and airports hemorrhaging up to $7 million every month, as they struggled to maintain critical services with decreased revenue. The pandemic also resulted in thousands of staff redundancies in the aviation sector, with many stood down and forced to find other work.
AAA Chief Executive, James Goodwin, said that due to this, funding for regional airport infrastructure had never been so important.
“COVID-19 has knocked regional airports for six, pushing passenger numbers down by more than 70 per cent and resulting in $7 million of lost revenue every month,” Mr Goodwin said.
“To make it even more challenging, council-owned airports don’t have access to Job Keeper but they continue to stay open as a critical service for the regional communities which rely on them.”
$41.2 million investment for COVID recovery
In June 2020, the Federal Government also announced a $41.2 million investment, again through its Regional Airports Program, in 60 regional airports to assist the aviation industry through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Michael McCormack said the Regional Airports Program would assist the owners of regional airports to undertake essential works, and promote aviation safety and access for regional Australians.
“For our regional communities, the local airport is an essential link to the rest of Australia,” Mr McCormack said.
Mr Goodwin added, “This program will help regional airports deliver projects which create long-term benefits, so communities can continue to connect to work, essential services, family and friends no matter where they live.
“Regional airports will be able to take advantage of fewer aircraft landing to start work on critical projects such as runway upgrades, taxiway improvements, new fencing and lighting to make air travel safer and more reliable.”
For the full list of the regional airports funded under the latest round of funding in the Regional Airports Program, go to: www.infrastructure.gov.au/aviation/regional/rap.aspx
Screening infrastructure grant funding
At the end of 2020, the Federal Government made amendments to security screening rules at airports around the country, introducing a tier-style framework for regional airport requirements. The change would see around eight regional airports, including Longreach Airport and Barcaldine Airport, cease passenger security screening, while another 13 airports, including Mt Isa Airport, would need to upgrade their security arrangements.
To support regional airports’ implementation of the new security requirements, and to enable airports to carry out necessary infrastructure works in preparation for increased passengers as more air services started to take flight again, the Federal Government launched the $66 million Regional Airports Screening Infrastructure (RASI) Program.
Government’s $715 million COVID-19 Australian Airline Financial Relief Package, which offered critical relief to the sector.
“It’s been a difficult year for the sector, its workers and those communities that rely on their local airports,” Mr McCormack said.
Recognising the support that regional airports would need to help communities get back on their feet following the COVID pandemic, several states also launched funding programs to facilitate recovery and development.
The Western Australian Government allocated almost $3 million in Regional Airports Development Scheme (RADS) grants to 25 projects across the state. Upgrades to regional airports include resealing of runways, upgrading airstrip lighting, airport development planning, installation of animal exclusion fencing, and improving operational safety and facilities for the RFDS operations.
In Victoria, $850,000 was invested by the State Government to support Mildura Airport in its recovery efforts. The new support will help the airport recover from a 95 per cent drop in revenue experienced between March and November 2020. During that time, passenger numbers dropped from over 20,000 a month to around 500 a month, with volumes now slowly rebuilding.
Driving economic development in regional communities was also highlighted in Infrastructure Australia’s 2021 Infrastructure Priority List, which included the addition of 44 new proposals and identified a $59 billion project pipeline of nationally significant investment opportunities. outlined the areas of infrastructure investment that should be focused on in 2021, and these included infrastructure development in regional communities, improving digital connectivity in regional areas, and investing in digital health services in regional and remote Australia, among other priorities.
Mr McCormack, said, “The aviation industry was one of the first and hardest-hit industries during COVID-19, and as we look to get even more planes back in the sky, we are continuing to support regional airports to ensure they bounce back strongly and can continue to connect our regions.
“This critical grant funding will reduce the costs to regional airports of security screening compliance at regional airports across Australia, including Rockhampton, Townsville, Whyalla, Ayers Rock (Uluru), Ballina Byron and Broome.
“Not only will this provide a significant boost for the airports, it will benefit regional passengers across Australia by ensuring those grant-funded screening costs don’t flow through to ticket prices.”
Mr McCormack said the RASI program was part of the
These focus areas are more pertinent than ever, with a 200 per cent increase in people moving from capital areas to regional areas in the wake of the pandemic, as people’s work patterns and use of critical infrastructure shifts
Despite falling revenue and passenger numbers from the pandemic, Mr Goodwin said that what was not going to change was Australia’s regional airports’ dedication to the communities they service.
“Despite these continued losses, airports have been good corporate citizens throughout the pandemic, staying open to assist the government in repatriating Australians, bringing freight and essential supplies in and out of the country, and moving essential workers to where they’re needed most,” Mr Goodwin said.
Minister for Water, Property and Housing, Melinda Pavey, with Hutchinson Builders team leader Fernando Uribe for start of construction at a $25.35 million housing renewal project at Bigge Street, Warwick Farm that will deliver 52 new social homes, due to be completed in early 2022.
The NSW Government welcomes NSW social housing’s addition to Infrastructure Australia’s 2021 list of national infrastructure priorities; viewing it as another positive step forward and opportunity to work in another strong, strategic partnership, to help solve common problems.
An ongoing priority and focus during my time as Minister has been to strengthen the housing delivery pipeline through the NSW Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) and Aboriginal Housing Office, and build stronger partnerships with community housing providers (CHPs).
This not only helps support people and families in need with better quality homes to meet their specific needs today and tomorrow, it’s also helping to build safer, stronger communities throughout NSW; especially in our regions.
While social housing delivery in NSW is strong compared to other Australian states, delivering seven per cent growth from 2015/16 to 2019/20 compared with just 0.3 per cent in Victoria, and nil in Queensland, we’re always striving to do more, knowing support for vulnerable people is a shared responsibility.
That’s why our proposal is identifying strategic initiatives and options to be included as part of Stage 2 of Infrastructure Australia’s Assessment Framework.
Our proposal ultimately aims to address maintenance needs for existing aging housing stock which is increasingly costly to maintain; renew life-expired housing stock; and develop new housing stock.
It also shows how this investment opportunity aligns with some of National Cabinet’s priorities and plans including the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement; the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010 – 2022; and new Closing the Gap housing targets.
Our work already enacts the NSW Premier’s priority to reduce street homelessness by 50 per cent by 2025, and is guided by existing NSW Government policies such as Future Directions for Social Housing and the NSW Homelessness Strategy
Future Directions sets out a ten-year pathway to build more new and better homes in stronger communities, aiming to
transform the current social housing system and break the cycle of disadvantage. This work is also complemented by our new Indigenous Australian social housing policy Strong Family, Strong Communities.
Future Directions is driven by three strategic priorities: more social housing; more opportunities, support and incentives to avoid and/or leave social housing; and a better social housing experience.
The NSW social housing system was developed in the 1940s for working families with low incomes, and today it supports a different demographic – the most vulnerable people in our community who need a safety net.
STRATEGY
In order to achieve these goals and deliver more new and better homes, LAHC identifies older housing that’s becoming more expensive to maintain, under occupied and no longer meeting tenants’ needs.
These aging assets are sold and the proceeds reinvested back into housing renewal. Vacant or underutilised land are also used to pursue redevelopment opportunities to deliver more social homes.
A recent success story of this strategic asset recycling program is the Millers Point Sales Program, where in midMarch the 1500th new home was delivered at Busby in south-western Sydney.
The Sales Program has seen 340 properties sold to date, raising close to $615 million. Every single dollar is reinvested back into the social housing portfolio.
The NSW housing delivery pipeline includes major community revitalisation sites such as Ivanhoe, Telopea, Riverwood, Waterloo, Arncliffe, Villawood and the State Government’s first build-to-rent project at Redfern.
Last November’s budget invested almost $900 million to help accelerate the delivery of about 1,000 new homes and create up to 3,000 jobs, as part of the Government’s stimulus and COVID recovery plan.
This included:
♦ $250 million over two years to build about 600 new social homes, including 260 in regional communities
♦ $200 million over the next two years to deliver maintenance and capital upgrades to more than 3,500 social homes, including $40 million over six months for Community Housing Providers (CHPs) to deliver immediate capital works on 2,000 government-owned properties
♦ $80 million over four years towards housing and construction apprenticeships and social housing industry cadetships for young people, including social housing tenants
This activity demonstrates the capacity in NSW to gear up quickly in partnership with the community housing and construction sectors when funds are made available for social housing investment.
With a portfolio of about 125,000 social homes, where rents are declining due to the age of tenants and increasingly smaller household size, recognition by the Australian Government of social housing investment benefits is really welcomed.
In addition, the state’s social housing portfolio has increased in value from $32 billion in 2010 to more than $51 billion today, making it the state’s second largest asset holding after roads and transport.
While we’ve increased our asset portfolio, we need to remove constraints to ensure it continues to deliver enough housing, and the right type of housing, to meet ongoing demand.
That’s why we’re focused on building more partnerships with like-minded partners which are a key to future growth; ultimately delivering mutually-beneficial outcomes for NSW communities and the economy.
For example, with improved cost efficiency and income streams the community housing sector in NSW has grown from delivering 68 new dwellings in 2012 to over 3,000 by 2020.
In 2016, NSW announced the $1.1 billion Social and Affordable Housing Fund, which is delivering 3,400 social and affordable homes by 2023.
Together we’ve delivered more than $3.2 billion in social housing properties since 2014-15, compared to $427 million in Victoria.
Regional NSW is also a key focus for LAHC and the NSW Government.
While we’re making progress – with about 750 new social homes expected to be completed by the NSW Government in regional communities between this year and 2023-24 – more is always needed.
The benefits are also shared with regional economies, with this investment forecast to create more than $200 million in construction activity and about 1,000 jobs.
For every $1 million LAHC invests in building new social housing, five jobs, including one apprenticeship, are created.
While Victoria is spruiking the creation of a ten-year strategy for social and affordable housing – and only established
Homes Victoria after announcing its $5.3 billion catch-up housing program last November – NSW has long been on the job, delivering outcomes and results.
From 2015-16 to 2019-20, NSW spent about $9 billion on social housing compared to Victoria’s $4 billion.
In addition, the per-capita investment in social housing in NSW ($161 per year) is 60 per cent more than Victoria’s ($101).
However, we’re not resting on our laurels for a moment and recognise the ongoing challenges. That’s why we’re pursuing this opportunity to build another strong partnership, to increase our capacity to build more better-quality homes to support more of the state’s most vulnerable people.
Social housing investment by state as reported in the Report on Government Services, over the last five years (2015/16 to 2019/20):
♦ NSW – $9 billion
♦ Victoria – $4 billion
♦ ACT – $722 million
♦ Queensland – $5.25 billion
♦ South Australia – $2.7 billion
♦ Western Australia – $3.9 billion
♦ Tasmania – $750 million
♦ Northern Territory – $1.5 billion
Increase in social housing delivery by state as reported in the Report on Government Services, over the last five years (2015/16 to 2019/20):
♦ Seven per cent in NSW
♦ 0.3 per cent in Victoria
♦ Two per cent in the ACT
♦ Nil in Queensland
♦ About one per cent in Western Australia
♦ Nil in Tasmania
♦ Six per cent in Northern Territory
♦ While in South Australia, the portfolio decreased 4.5 per cent
According to the most recent report on Government Services, there are about 155,000 social homes in NSW compared to: 76,600 in Victoria; 71,000 in Queensland; 46,000 in South Australia; 42,500 in Western Australia; 13,500 in Tasmania; 12,500 in the NT; and 11,600 in the ACT.
For more information on Future Directions for Social Housing, please visit www.dpie.nsw.gov.au/land-and-housing-corporation/plans-and-policies/future-directions.
What will our future cities, and the infrastructure that helps them function, look like? With so much industry evolution, the answer to this is continually changing. This year’s Critical Infrastructure Summit held an industry panel bringing together some of the best minds in infrastructure delivery and city planning to explore this and look at the impact of digital technologies, future mobility, sustainability and accessibility on the future of the sector.
The industry panel was sponsored by Nearmap and held during the Summit’s final session Future of Infrastructure. The panellists were Damian Gould, CEO, Building Queensland; Marion Terrill, Transport and Cities Program Director, Grattan Institute Melbourne; and Stephen Neale, Product Manager – 3D, Nearmap.
COVID-19 showed us how quickly things can change in just a few months, with the pandemic impacting the way people use infrastructure in Australia. While it’s still uncertain if these changes in behaviour will be temporary or permanent, it does bring up the question: do we need to be rethinking the way we plan our cities?
Marion noted that as Australia and the world is still dealing with COVID, it’s unclear what the end state will be.
“We’re not yet in a stable situation where we know where we’re standing, so it’s a time of high uncertainty. I think that does affect the way that we plan cities as we have to plan them to be resilient to a range of possible future scenarios,” Marion said.
She said there are a few things that we know for certain have changed, including the fact that population growth has ground to a halt with the closing of international borders, and that there has been a move out of public transport and into cars – with cities having to learn to manage the switch in demand.
“It’s very much an open question as to whether we will get back to the levels of population growth that we’ve seen in the last decade or so, and that’s important because the business cases for a lot of urban infrastructure have been underpinned by population growth,” Marion said.
“The other thing I would raise in terms of how we think about planning cities in a world with COVID, is that it has a big impact on people’s transport choices, and we’re certainly seeing that at the moment in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.”
Damian’s work with Building Queensland helps drive the development of the state’s major infrastructure business cases so he views the planning and development of our major cities on a more project-specific basis.
“Clearly COVID has demonstrated that when developing the business case for a major transport project, even if you stress test the assumptions and come up with different scenarios, no one could have dreamt that we’d have a scenario where public transport patronage went down by 80 per cent,” Damian said.
“Now those levels are starting to come back up again but it’s a slow transition, and people are starting to see some of the immediate impacts around increased traffic congestion.”
He said COVID has put into question previous assumptions around where main population nodes will be, both in terms of where people decide to live and how employment hubs, transport and other requirements will connect and service citizens.
“I think some of the more immediate learnings that have come out of COVID is thinking more about how you manage the flow of people, or try to build into the design process some element of how people can physically distance. There’s a recognition of those sort of perimeters being built into individual matters like building and asset design.”
Stephen Neale from Nearmap agreed and also pointed out that the data gathered over years and years that outlines longterm trends has now been flipped on its head.
“This situation has changed very quickly and the predictions and the models that we may have had previously don’t quite apply now, so we need to think about how we can plan for the future and make decisions with new trends not apparent in past data,” Stephen said.
Damian believes that the most enduring challenge for Australia’s infrastructure and cities will be the appropriate planning and security of water supply to major cities and regional centres, which he says is an emerging issue in several parts of Queensland.
In addition, he said that there needs to be a focus on health and a requirement to evolve and embrace digital healthcare.
“We really need to make sure the physical and digital assets continue to address the emerging and growing service needs in healthcare,” Damian said.
While for Marion, the biggest challenge she sees is the way that infrastructure decisions made by the government are often politicised.
“By way of example, I could say most major projects are committed to without actually having a business case, and sometimes one is done after, but it is more often than not, not actually informing the decision to invest.
“The reason that this matters is that we are in a changing world; we are facing these challenges, particularly around climate change, sustainability and the pandemic, and we need to make good infrastructure decisions – and they need to be able to change when the circumstances around us change.
“I feel that there is a substantial challenge, or risk really, facing future investment in infrastructure because we seem to be stuck in a manner of decision-making that isn’t really serving us very well,” Marion said.
Australia’s infrastructure is constantly evolving and becoming more digitally connected, and the panel talked about the technological advancements they think will have the biggest impact on our cities in the future.
Stephen said there are organisations rolling out 5G infrastructure across Australia which provides access to real-time communication.
“As that infrastructure is being rolled out we start to realise that idea of real-time communication. If we have real-time sensors and real-time communication we can allow things like vehicle-to-vehicle communication, and vehicle-toinfrastructure communication.
“Having worked in the car navigation industry in the past, there was this one picture of the future that really stood out to me, and it was this concept of communication between vehicles and infrastructure that meant we no longer needed traffic lights – cars could speak to each other and cross each other at intersections without causing any accidents.
“This sort of decision-making is actually a realisation of the technology that’s evolving out there now. This 5G technology is enabling communication, and real-time sensors are setting us up for this huge wealth of data that’s coming in, and what
we need to do now is come up with the decision-making frameworks to best use that data.”
For Damian, he sees huge potential in the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
“There’s current pilots looking at that in the context of how to better predict project outcomes from a cost and scheduling perspective. But the applications for assessing the demand for infrastructure that will inform business cases and design processes is important.”
While Marion is excited that the technology is now sufficiently developed to make it realistic to introduce congestion charging.
“It’s a real opportunity for our cities. I know it’s kind of political poison, but particularly in a world of COVID where people’s instinct is to go out in the car and not worry about their own contribution to slowing everyone else down, charging a small congestion charge is a counter to that so people who can be flexible take their trip at a different time of day,” Marion said.
“It seems to me that in lots of ways it has been difficult to contemplate congestion charging schemes because the technology was not great, but I think that has changed now. To me it’s game-changing in terms of what we can do and how we can get more out of the infrastructure that we’ve already got.”
Marion said the main thing that’s important when it comes to sustainability is to be robust to a range of future scenarios.
“What’s important here is that in mature cities, you’ve got most of the infrastructure that you’re ever going to have really, so that you use it as effectively as you can and that you look after it properly.
“There are service gaps, so to think about what is a sustainable city, it is a vibrant and inclusive place where people can get around, so that they don’t have to operate in a disconnected village. Sustainability for me is a lot about accessibility and connectedness, but it’s about the stewardship of what we have and using it to the best effect.”
Damian said the industry needs to think about future scenarios as it tries to plan infrastructure investments to provide services over a project’s 20-30 year lifespan – from what’s the demand, to how do you design and configure the relevant infrastructure solutions to meet that service need.
“It’s a bit of a mind shift in taking it beyond the benefits of this transport project, such as travel time savings for commuters and car users, and a reduction in operating costs. It’s looking at what are the broader societal implications and benefits and how do you structure the narrative around that,” Damian said.
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COVID-19 has impacted plans for our cities and how people use them. Here’s what the future of Victoria could look like when it comes to green spaces, housing and urban precincts, and what we need to do to get there.
On the back of a challenging year, it’s clear that governments, industry and individuals are all now assessing the impact and opportunities that our ‘new normal’ presents. As many of us reflect on ‘this time last year’, now is the time to shift our thinking to ‘this time next year’ and beyond.
There is a lot ahead to be excited by, buoyed by what we have seen is a resilient economy and property sector here in Australia.
Across the property and development sector, we certainly recognise that there are challenges, and at the same time extraordinary opportunities – particularly in terms of increasing housing affordability and building more sustainable places that will deliver enduring benefits for the economy and our communities.
Smarter and more sustainable homes, good use of land close to infrastructure and services, community places, beautiful and practical open and green spaces – places where people can thrive.
We also see the important role our industry must play in supporting economic recovery through the creation of jobs and delivery of vital infrastructure to support the way we live and work into the future.
HOUSING AFFORDABILITY AND DIVERSITY
As the Victorian Government’s property developer, our mission is to deliver great outcomes for people and the state. This includes providing more homes at affordable prices for more Victorians.
At the same time, the housing property market continues to grow, particularly in the regional market that has outperformed metro for the first time in 15 years. Median house prices right across Australia have never been as high, and while this is no doubt a sign of confidence across the market, it also means first homeowners and moderate to low-income earners will continue to struggle to buy a home – unless we all do something different.
At Development Victoria, we’ve committed to providing 25 per cent affordable housing across our total property portfolio, and this is primarily targeted to moderate-income earners. In creating more quality affordable options, we can help buyers into their first home through, for example, shared equity, and give them early access to affordable housing and affordable design.
Record investment in affordable and social housing through Victoria’s Big Housing Build also presents the opportunity for transformational change. We will collaborate with industry, the not-for-profit sector and the community, as well other government agencies, to maximise the social and economic benefits from this investment – and give more people a place to call home.
Living and working through a pandemic has sparked a renewed focus on health, well-being and the environment, and presents a reminder of the interdependence of our actions.
Sustainability must be front and centre in the homes and projects we design and deliver.
To achieve real and consistent sustainable outcomes, and as a champion of transformation more broadly in our industry, Development Victoria has mandated a range of best practice initiatives across our entire portfolio. This includes a focus on quality, affordability and comfort; a clear commitment to protect and restore biodiversity; 30 per cent better than code energy savings, 35 per cent reduction in water use, and 40 per cent renewables on-site.
Green spaces are an integral part of our developments and it’s something that we see as non-negotiable when it comes to urban living. More time spent at home, coupled with a desire for connection, fresh air, and a healthy and active lifestyle, means we need a diversity of green spaces in our developments.
We see it as critical that developers see water-sensitive urban design as the norm and stormwater as a resource, not a burden. It is the most effective way to deliver social and environmental benefits for local flora, fauna and the community – creating smart, adaptable and beautiful green spaces where both people and the environment can grow.
We’re on track to achieve our target of being carbon neutral by 2030 and see this as another way that we can meet consumer demand for more cost-effective and sustainable energy solutions in their homes. Sustainable design is key and can include the implementation of renewable energy technology like solar panels and battery storage, all of which help reduce our carbon footprint and energy bills.
Development Victoria is in a unique position to champion sustainability, innovation and transformation in our industry as we engage with the private sector and government to research and test new ideas to move towards a more sustainable future.
There is no doubt the development and construction sector has a critical role in supporting the retention and creation of jobs to support economic recovery.
At Development Victoria, this includes project managing the delivery of social and civic infrastructure projects which support tourism, regional development, sports and recreation, and the arts, such as the $1.46 billion phase one Melbourne Arts Precinct Transformation and the $130 million redevelopment and expansion of the State Basketball Centre.
A key part of economic recovery is building community and industry confidence through opportunity.
Supporting job opportunities is integral to that confidence, directly through the projects themselves, as well as creating more jobs in places people want to live – and creating places people want to live that are close to existing employment opportunities. Opportunity will always come from change. The challenge now is to garner our collective expertise across all levels of government, industry and both the private and public sectors, to make a positive impact for our communities.
As regional communities around Australia begin their journeys towards creating a smart and innovative environment for residents to live, work and play in, it’s important that they stop to consider exactly what being a “smart community” means in the regional context.
The most expansive and inclusive thing we can do for the community is build a digital foundation. However, there is a monumental challenge that lies in the implementation of the traditional layers of connectivity infrastructure.
Regional towns and communities are inherently different to cities. Residents have different ways of working, living and moving around communities; and they have different values and thrive in a different cultural norm.
The vision to digitally transform an entire region is bold. It’s the kind of collective deep dive that can only be pursued by grounding itself in the value systems that drive our regional communities. Taking this approach will ultimately deliver smart communities that reflect their diversity, their economies and the regional environment.
Seeking to implement the traditional components of a smart city in the regional context is a monumental task.
In cities, IoT platforms are information highways – they are used as an electricity point we ‘plug’ our cities into. We plug in data points and build infrastructure around them to serve as a smart serviced city for our communities. Complex IoT electricity circuits are built, and presumptions are made that the availability of a ‘power point’ will give our communities the ability to turn their lives on and connect.
That’s an ideal model for dense, socioeconomically advanced urban city councils. Information superhighways run through cities like their equally well-planned, grid-like infrastructure. These cities are built with an access point for the future.
In regional Australia, it’s a different story. We run our infrastructure around our rolling hills, our agricultural grids, and our harsh and unrelenting environment. We build with a near future lens, to simply and quickly be able to provide for the next stage of expansion. Our communities remain connected through their resilience, not IoT platforms.
The Ovens Murray and Riverina Murray Regions collectively cover over 180,000 square kilometres of Australia and have a high level of self-containment, due to their distance from metropolitan Melbourne and Sydney. This self-containment has resulted in rapid transformation and individual reforms that have created a culture of innovative thought patterns and short-term problem solving.
As a result, throughout the region we have a number of datasets that remain centralised and specific, with no broadspectrum approach.
Meanwhile, the recent battering of the region through the worst bushfire season in Australia’s history, and the impacts COVID-19 border closures have turned the focus to our need for resilience in a different form, paving the way for the digital rejuvenation of our urban and rural environments.
The approach to digitisation will see a movement away from treatment technologies and solutions to prevention technologies and solutions, through a diverse overlay of combined connected infrastructure leading to systems and policy reforms.
This approach focuses on capturing datasets with the aim of decentralisation, allowing our communities to actively participate in contributing insights that align with their personal value system. Leading to a community driven decision-making process that allows Council to prescribe and not dictate innovation.
This same model will be critical to mobilising datasets for two-way communication between community and essential infrastructure services, amenities and services providers such as healthcare, education and primary regional industries.
As we work to enable our region to be smarter, more resilient and more sustainable, while improving livability,
there are a number of new technologies and partnerships we are currently undertaking.
Council is conducting trials into innovative parking and compliance solutions that allow for greater accessibility to the CBD, while utilising the opportunity to engage our community more deeply in how they interact with the city and its service offerings. While being supported by a solar powered network that will also capture emissions data and climatic indicators. This will help us to improve planning for population growth, infrastructure needs and climate patterns that are impacted by motor vehicle fossil fuels.
We’ve also taken a holistic approach to waste management, improving our environmental impact through a program to halve waste in collaboration with eleven regional Councils.
In addition, we use data points that indicate real-time usage and climatic factors that affect waste emission to determine continuous improvement opportunities.
Projects are in development to deliver a life radius reform for our regional communities, empowering them to have the greatest possible livability outcomes within proximity of their home and workplace, powered by digital technologies and collaborative global partnerships.
In addition, the planned development of Community and Industry lead Regional IoT Network aims to cover six LGA’s and four shires offering IoT access ‘as a service’. Community and industry are leading the utilisation of the network, allowing their values and priorities to inform the Council of their needs.
The development of a high-speed regional hub-and-spoke data centres allow for high-speed fibre edge computing, enabling our critical transport corridors with the capacity for M2M logistics, provide primary industry with the capacity to automate and grow with AI, and the eventual growth of investment in high-speed business parks.
Critical connected incident pathways for our emergency services, boost service delivery for healthcare providers to access our vulnerable communities, and digital applications in our agriculture and horticulture belts.
Ultimately, the environment we live in calibrates our communities and guides our innovation. Regional Australia’s roadmap to connectivity strives to promote unity, focusing on humanitarian principles grounded in scientific data.
When looking at safe work practices, any opportunity to take something that was previously a noisy and manual process and make it into a streamlined, environmentally aware and digitalised process, should be seized.
Tm stagetec systems (TMS) is a Sydney-based developer and manufacturer of digital audio and visual hardware and software solutions. iTech Corporation specialises in electrical engineering, incorporating electrical design, automation systems design, SCADA systems engineering and process control.
These two Australian companies have worked together to produce a GBWS – Ground Based Warning System – implemented in a rail maintenance hub.
Previously, there has been significant environmental concerns with the noise associated with safely moving trains around train yards and hubs.
Traditionally the way trains were safely moved around was to simply blow the horn of the train. This GBWS allows trains to be safely moved using a system installed at track level.
Some of the benefits of GBWS include:
♦ The system is a digital GBWS, installed to safely and efficiently warn that trains are being moved
♦ It’s used primarily in large rail hubs and maintenance yards
♦ It’s a network TCP/IP-based solution, using Dante IP protocol
♦ GBWS uses distributed Network Amplifier Modules (NAM)
♦ It’s fully monitored and controlled via a centralised system
♦ It’s an Australian-designed digital technology
Audio has also been added to surrounding buildings to form a PA system using the same infrastructure installed as part of the GBWS, resulting in efficiency and cost savings. Fibre is used for all interconnections so only power and fibre connections are required.
TMS General Manager, Mark Lownds, said, “This GBWS is just one example of the type of project we can take on, and I look forward to seeing what we can achieve in the next decade.”
With a $664,580 grant in hand from the Australian Research Council, Monash University’s Department of Civil Engineering is undertaking a ground-breaking research initiative using robotic technology to improve the quality and productivity of construction – research that is expected to transform current labour-intensive methods.
Monash University’s Professor Yu Bai is leading an interdisciplinary team from seven Australian universities to develop a unique and innovative facility centred on structural assembly and construction automation.
Capitalising on the unique opportunity robotic technology presents to the construction industry, the initiative will fill an industry gap as there has previously been no state-of-the-art research infrastructure developed for this need.
The facility features a flexible and adaptive design and instrumentation of structures, with space for a team of collaborative robotics, and an interactive environment where prefabrication, assembly and building will be automated.
It’s expected that the current labour-intensive construction industry could be transformed into one that employs highly-automated and accurate prefabrication processes, with exceptional benefits to the economy and worker safety as a result.
This initiative was made possible through a grant from the Federal Government’s Linkage, Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) program. In the 2021 round of the LIEF scheme, 47 new research grants were awarded with a total government spend of $38.8 million.
Professor Bai and his colleagues have designed the facility using extensive research on modular construction and composites for construction. This research, combined with robotic technology, is predicted to culminate in accelerated, higher-quality production outcomes that are more precise and more economical.
Professor Bai’s research expertise centres on structural systems through modern building technologies, such as modular construction and robotic construction, and using complementary material advantages like fibre-reinforced polymer composites in combination with traditional concrete, steel and timber.
The new research facility will cover:
♦ Structural design for manufacturing and assembly
♦ Lightweight structural materials and connections
♦ Construction planning and safety
♦ Sensing and monitoring
♦ Building Information Modelling and digital asset management
♦ Optimisation of structures and assembly
♦ Automation and informatics
♦ Robotic systems and human-robot interaction
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY LAGS BEHIND IN AUTOMATION
CSIRO’s Data61 found that the robotics and autonomous systems industry is set to be worth $23 billion by 2025.
Professor Bai said many industries, such as manufacturing and transport, had adopted automated practices to speed up, optimise and economise production. However, he said that construction is one industry that is lagging behind and not yet taking advantage of these technological advancements.
“Robotic technology has made significant progress in a number of industry domains in the last several years and construction can benefit from this advancement,” Professor Bai said.
“The use of robotic technology can be a game-changing step as seen in other industries such as aerospace and automobile engineering.”
Robotic technology is currently being used in other industries like transport, with Transurban’s trial of robotic selfwheeling traffic cones and smart rumble strips in Melbourne, one example.
Australian utilities are also implementing robotic technology with Sydney Water using a floating robot to collect data in its sewers, and Water Corporation using robotic vehicles to inspect its extensive pipeline network in Western Australia, among other projects.
Professor Bai said the facility, and subsequent advancements in automation for the construction industry, brought numerous benefits, including the creation of a safer work environment.
“It means the transformation of on-site prototype construction to made-to-measure structural production and the elevation of prefabrication and off-site manufacturing into automated processes,” Professor Bai said.
“Furthermore, automating traditional construction approaches can remove workers’ exposure to unsafe tasks and hazardous work environments.”
Professor Bai said that ultimately, worker safety and improved environmental safety would benefit the construction industry, with the LIEF funded program bringing that vision to life.
“We’re grateful to the Australian Government’s LIEF program for its support behind our vision to benefit the building industry so it is safer for workers, more environmentally sustainable and, above all, more affordable for consumers,” Professor Bai said.
The merging of spatial data and game engine platforms makes the ingestion of massivescale data for real-time and ultra-immersive experiences more accessible to the geospatial industry. It opens new opportunities for the infrastructure industry to showcase large projects.
The launch of the “Cesium for Unreal” plugin shows how close 3D geospatial modelling and game engine visualisation sectors are merging. That new plugin is getting significant interest from the industry, but Esri, Skyline, Unity and multiple other platforms are rapidly developing for more robust and diverse ways to visualise 3D data.
3D modelling specialist Aerometrex constantly tests the newly bridged and evolving platforms with its high-resolution city models as the base dataset.
Over recent years, the advancement of 3D photogrammetry has meant that
more of our world can be captured and recorded digitally. Aerometrex’s 3D models have been getting more detailed, with street-level enhancement able to capture the finest features.
While the geospatial and simulation industries have tools and packages to deal with the ever-growing data requirements, the real-time engines have lacked a mainstream solution that could leverage open documented file formats.
The merging of 3D spatial data and gaming is creating the most powerful visualisation platforms for spatial professionals. These platforms open substantial opportunities for infrastructure design, planning, showcasing and visualisation. Spatial teams involved in infrastructure industries can now leverage the significant power of game engines.
Game engines ingesting spatial data make working with high fidelity, complex and extensive 3D models much more straightforward. The fact that data is streamable instead of pre-loaded and managed through local datasets, has made the user workflow much more effortless. You can add entire Aerometrex city models with three clicks from a local location or use hosted models within the platform.
Large-scale infrastructure – think the size of an airport, highway, bridge, or rail network – can be quickly loaded
into a 3D city model to simulate the real-world impact. Once loaded, you can unleash the full realism potential of game engine visualisation.
Game engines have in-built 3D asset libraries and simulation capabilities which give infrastructure modelling an ultra-realistic potential. It is possible to reach a level of production quality traditionally beyond the reach of spatial work. Adding an Aerometrex 3D city model with atmospheric lighting, volumetric clouds, realistic weather, people and vehicles, lets you build and populate the world.
Those digital flourishes turn infrastructure simulation and visualisation into engaging assets to showcase projects or build robust concept designs for tenders. The 3D asset libraries are rich enough for the smallest details. You can, for example, fully recreate a café across the road from a new building model and view it from the diners’ point-of-view. Or drive a car along a new highway model.
The freedom and flexibility is only limited by the creator.
Speak to Aerometrex about your next infrastructure project and the new visualisation techniques at www.aerometrex.com.au
Drive your next critical infrastructure project with Aerometrex’s 3D data that’s ready for the most advanced visualisation platforms.
- Deliver ultra-realism with Aerometrex 3D models
- Stream large & complex 3D datasets with game engines
- Convert static 3D meshes into immersive & interactive experiences
- Showcase and promote novel use cases for infrastructure projects
Aerometrex 3D models enable decision making at the speed of conversation and based on data that can be twinned with reality. The ability to integrate these models into easy-to-use visualisation platforms aids the viewing and analysing of large scale infrastructure projects, planning data, and engineering designs. These models can now be placed into the hands of anyone, at any time. The best visualisations start with the best 3D models
www.aerometrex.com.au
As Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel begins to take shape across the city, innovative technology is needed to help the system run more trains, more often, in a safe and efficient way. Assisting the new infrastructure to support the increase of services is the installation of next-generation, high-capacity signalling (HCS) along the Cranbourne, Pakenham and Sunbury Lines, creating a more reliable public transport network.
The Metro Tunnel Project is currently under construction across Melbourne and will free up space in the city’s busy City Loop by taking Melbourne’s busiest train lines through a new tunnel, helping to run more trains to and from the suburbs.
The Rail Systems Alliance, a consortium made up of CPB Contractors, Alstom and Metro Trains Melbourne, is the ‘brains’ of the flagship public transport project and is responsible for delivering the HCS across the network. The installation of the HCS on Melbourne’s rail network makes it the first rollout of HCS and associated communications systems on an existing rail network anywhere in Australia.
The new HCS will replace Melbourne’s existing ‘fixed block’ system, which currently utilises coloured signals to tell trains when it is safe to proceed.
The new HCS technology works by monitoring and controlling both the speed and location of trains in real time, moving with the trains and allowing them to safely run closer together and more frequently. The signalling system will optimise the operation of the 65 new high-capacity metro trains (HCMT), which are currently being built in Victoria.
Thanks to the HCS’s advanced technology, trains will be able to run every two to three minutes, which the Rail Systems Alliance says is the first step to creating a ‘turn-up-and-go’ train network for Melbourne, similar to those in London, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Rail Projects Victoria, which is delivering the project on behalf of the Victorian Government, estimates that the larger modern trains will provide an extra 121,000 passenger capacity on the Cranbourne, Pakenham and Sunbury Lines during peak periods, which is an increase of 45 per cent more peak capacity.
Existing signals currently used along the Cranbourne, Pakenham and Sunbury Lines will also be updated so trains that use the HCS, as well as those that use conventional signalling, such as freight and regional services, can seamlessly operate on the same network.
Dedicated control centres are currently being established in Dandenong and Sunshine to support the new HCS technology, with the centres to be staffed around the clock to monitor real-time operations. Network operators will be based at these high-tech signalling control centres to monitor their progress and ensure trains maintain safe stopping distances. Trains on the network will wirelessly transmit real-time speed and location data to these control centres, allowing staff to track trains across the network.
Prior to being rolled out across the entire network, the HCS has been trialled using a small number of X'Trapolis trains on the Mernda Line between Epping and South Morang stations. The HCS was also successfully tested on HCMT trains at a dedicated 1.5km test track within the Pakenham East train depot, with first round testing taking place on 23 March 2021.
During this testing, the train was able to successfully communicate with trackside equipment, utilising the full extent of the HCS.
Simon MacMull, Rail Systems Alliance's Integration Manager, said it was encouraging to reach this milestone and see lots of hard work pay off.
“In preparation for this milestone, we have ensured all the basics on the train and wayside worked,” Mr MacMull said.
“It’s a really positive start to this testing campaign and it’s pleasing to see this early on how our integration efforts are paying off on-site, alongside all the efforts the team has put in to get these trains moving."
In addition, the Rail Systems Alliance recently welcomed an innovative simulator that simulates the driver's cabin of an X'Trapolis train, outfitted with HCS. The simulator technology is another crucial step in testing the new signalling system before it’s installed.
When completed, this change to signalling on Melbourne’s metropolitan network will signify the biggest signalling change for more than 100 years, marking a significant step in transforming the city's transport network.
Helping to bring the new HCS technology to the Metro Tunnel Project are approximately 77 different kinds of engineers who will use their passion for maths, science and problem-solving to help provide positive outcomes for passengers across the network.
Automation engineer, Da Lu, said he was passionate about providing positive outcomes for Melburnians and couldn’t turn down the opportunity to be a part of the landmark project.
“We all love Melbourne. Instead of just witnessing the history here, we want to be part of that,” Mr Lu said.
“People in the future won’t need to wait for trains, or check the timetable, they can just show up and jump on the train.”
Signal engineer, Liza Kierans, is also working on the project and said that she appreciates the variety and complexity of her work helping bring the Metro Tunnel to life.
“In my role, I get to be a problem solver daily,” Ms Kierans said.
“Every day is different and novel, and our interactions with people are different, due to the problems we’re trying to solve.
“Success for me is getting high-capacity signalling into Melbourne for the first time ever. I think this project will show people that signalling is something you can actually cut a ribbon on.”
The federal, state and territory Governments have published their first annual report for the National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy. The report highlighted the need for sharing data in a consistent manner to improve industry efficiency and productivity.1
Asurvey conducted for the strategy’s Industry Reference Panel found that one of the issues constantly raised is the need to share data in a consistent manner and this cry is echoed across the industry at ALC events including annual ALC forums, technology summits and Inland Rail conferences.
This led the Australian Logistics Council to develop a policy to encourage the development of a common set of open data standards, and in December 2020, it released its Single Freight Data Standard policy.
The data standard is designed to provide the framework for the interoperable sharing of information about the movement of freight and vehicles as they travel the supply chain.
In development, ALC liaised with industry and government partners including GS1 and Transport Certification Australia (TCA) to develop a data standard for capturing information in a uniform way that is also fit for purpose for the industry.
GS1 global data standards offer the EPCIS standard and associated Core Business Vocabulary, which provides the framework for the interoperable sharing of information about the physical movement and the status of objects including products, materials and shipments as they travel the supply chain. It links the what, where, when and the why dimensions that are so important in ensuring freight visibility.
The National Telematics Framework is administered by Transport Certification Australia. It is aligned with ISO 15638, which establishes the framework for collaborative telematics applications for regulated commercial freight vehicles and is designed to capture data that can be used for safety, compliance and planning purposes.
These data standards would be used to collect information in a standardised fashion so the information can be used throughout the supply chain for a variety of purposes including:
1. Assisting in the collection of statistics for government purposes
2. Providing a uniform data format that can be used for those wishing to enhance the visibility of freight in which they have an interest
3. Presenting information to road managers in a way that would facilitate decisions relating to access to routes by heavy vehicles
4. Assisting compliance with legislation
5. Facilitating planning by both industry and governments
The document is designed to be used in a modular fashion, with data elements separated into data ‘layers’ which may be used independently or collectively, depending upon the needs of the user.
For example, a freight forwarder may be primarily interested in data relating to the goods being transported, while another might seek to combine this with data relating to the vehicle carrying the freight.
However, all the relevant layers are contained in a single framework allowing safe and efficient data sharing between commercial entities, government entities, data aggregators and technology providers.
IN THE FREIGHT AND LOGISTICS INDUSTRY WOULD USE THE STANDARD?
Some possible users of the standard include:
♦ Freight customers, who may use this document as a reference or requirement for contractors and telematics service providers to comply with when providing services
♦ Logistics managers, who may elect to use this document as a reference to ensure interoperability with other systems relevant to the movement of freight
♦ Transport operators, who may be asked to ensure their own commercial systems, or the data services they procure from third parties, comply with the standards underpinning this document
♦ Data aggregators
♦ Telematics service providers, who may be asked to comply with the standards referenced in this document when constructing data schemas, exchange systems and analytics for clients
♦ Road managers or government agencies, who will be able to access, compare, aggregate and analyse data efficiently for regulatory, planning, policy or transport operational purposes
♦ Governments may elect to reference this document as a standard to be used for entities in the freight supply chain wishing to share data with the government for public purposes
The standard answers a need recognised by both industry and government.
At a meeting held on 7 December 2020, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Michael McCormack MP, said, “The Australian Government acknowledges the need for a single data standard to enable governments and industry to make data-driven decisions.”
While Kirk Coningham OAM, CEO of ALC, said, “Data is the ‘new oil’ for the supply chain industry.”
As the Productivity Commission said in its recent report on national transport regulatory reform, “governments should prioritise uses of data with the greatest potential to improve productivity in the transport sector in ways that can inform the provision and management of infrastructure, inform decisions around planning and technology, and assist in the development and implementation of other future legislation, with the information forming part of the proposed federal Freight Data Hub.”2
ALC encourages industry and government to consider adopting the standard to exchange freight and supply chain information.
¹https://www.freightaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/strategy-2020-annual-report.pdf, page 5
² Inquiry report - National Transport Regulatory Reform Productivity Commission (pc.gov.au), page 33
The Australian rail industry is moving towards digitalisation. Based on ISO certified GS1 Global Data Standards, Project i-TRACE is an industry-led program created to ensure the correct digital foundations are laid to support long-term traceability and asset management processes.
It specifically addresses unambiguous identification, physical marking and, importantly, the efficient management of material master data to assist the procurement process of rail components and assets. Endorsed by the board of the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) for industry-wide adoption and implementation, a growing number of rail organisations have commenced their digital journeys under Project i-TRACE and are reaping the benefits that this initiative delivers.
Project i-TRACE involves standardising the capture of data relating to all assets and materials in the rail supply chain, ensuring there is a strong foundation upon which to build digital capabilities. Using a common, standards-based approach to identify and mark materials is critical across a range of areas.
Industry benefits include:
♦ Reduced inventory write-offs and waste
♦ Better customer service by achieving more consistent object identification
♦ Improved maintenance and repair operations
♦ Improved traceability and warranty management
♦ Reduced costs through fewer transaction errors and better-quality data Efficiency is heavily reliant on effective supply chain management practices to assure material availability of the right quantity and quality is available when needed. So widespread adoption is critical to achieving crossindustry benefits.
Businesses who fail to adopt GS1 Global Data Standards run the risk of getting left behind and not taking advantage of the enormous benefits this initiative has to offer.
In 2021, rail operators will be asking their major suppliers “are you on track?”, as they increasingly require their suppliers to have GS1 barcodes on products when signing new contracts.
Project i-TRACE is a broad business initiative which needs buy-in from a range of internal stakeholders. Business case approval from executives will ensure sponsorship for the project, providing a high measure of success. View the case studies on the GS1 Australia website at www.gs1au.org/ for-your-industry/rail/ which show how organisations have benefitted from implementing GS1 standards.
At every stage of the process GS1 is available to assist businesses on their journey. Work with the GS1 team to help guide your organisation through the critical steps of Project i-TRACE.
“We encourage prospective and current members to attend a training session,” Tony Repaci, Account Director – Freight, Logistics and Industrial Sectors at GS1 Australia, said.
“It's very important that before they barcode all products that they have the barcode QA tested to ensure the correct symbology and that the data is encoded to the correct specifications. Once we've tested the barcodes, we can then give them a full verification report which they can take away with confidence and start their trial or project.”
The rail industry is streamlining its supply chains. The need for digitalisation of vital supply chain data is a critical enabler of operational efficiency, safety and accountability. If you are a supplier to the rail industry – are you on track?
For more information, contact itrace@gs1au.org.
As we begin to approach a level of post-COVID normalcy, infrastructure projects are supercharging the sector and creating jobs across the board. Covering everything from regional rail upgrades and progress on the Metro Tunnel, to port expansions and highway developments, the Victorian Transport Infrastructure Conference provides the chance to gain valuable industry insights and access to exclusive job opportunities.
Taking place on 16 and 17 June at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, the Victorian Transport Infrastructure Conference will bring together key industry stakeholders and transport sector heavyweights for two full days of informative presentations, insightful panel discussions and hours of networking with peers and experts.
After a welcome address from the Hon. Tim Pallas, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Relations and Minister for Industrial Relations, the conference will open with a presentation from Dr Jonathan Spear. As CEO of Infrastructure Victoria, Jonathan will speak on the problem areas of Melbourne’s transport network, as well as the potential benefits and drawbacks of paid usage schemes.
Covering Melbourne’s largest and most impressive rail project in 50 years, Damian Brizzi from Rail Projects Victoria will deliver the latest updates on the massive Melbourne Metro Tunnel Project. Damian will speak on the details of the project, what’s next in the process and the significant impacts on travel we can expect upon completion.
A panel discussion delving into the challenge of prioritising key projects will feature Marion Terrill of Grattan Institute, Professor Majid Sarvi of University of Melbourne, Rachel Dapiran of Victorian Planning Authority and independent transport planner William McDougall. The panel will discuss the complicated problems linked to population growth and how to best select projects that will facilitate and support the growth of the economy whilst maintaining the comfort of the community.
Opening day two of the conference will be another panel featuring Jennifer Kaye of Level Crossing Removal Project, Mandi Davidson of RPS, Megan Cusack of Melbourne Airport Rail Link, Romina Cavallo of RPS and Trent Woodberry of Major Road Projects Victoria. The panellists will share their thoughts on the role of the community in the delivery of major projects, as well as the importance of clear communication when keeping the community well engaged.
From ARTC, Ed Walker will provide an in-depth overview of the North East Rail Line Upgrade and the Victorian segment of the Inland Rail project, connecting Tottenham and Albury. This presentation will delve into the improvements we can expect from the projects, the latest updates on project delivery and updated timelines.
Covering topics ranging from optimal project planning and strategic transport development to overviews of some of the most high-budget, influential transport projects in the state, the Victorian Transport Infrastructure Conference is a must-attend for industry stakeholders and investors within the sector.
The Victorian Transport Infrastructure Conference will be held on 16 and 17 June at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. For more information, please visit vicinfrastructure.com.au
Australian and New Zealand road managers maintain around 70,000 bridges on public road networks. To assist their work in ensuring bridge assets provide a suitable level of service to the economy and community, Austroads has developed a guideline that applies asset management principles specifically to bridges to address their unique characteristics and needs.
Building on foundational documents, such as ISO 55000 and the International Infrastructure Management Manual (IIMM), the guideline promotes an engineering approach.
Barry Wright, Lead Advisor Structures, New Zealand Transport Agency and Austroads Project Manager for the guideline, said, “What we found was a heavy apparent reliance on numerical condition ratings. But the project team
Principles of lifecycle activities that inform bridge asset management.
considered that this approach had limitations and we needed an engineering-based approach.”
Ross Guppy, Austroads Transport Infrastructure Program Manager, said, “Using engineering principles, knowledge, experience and modelling tools is the only robust approach to understanding the current and future condition and needs of a bridge network.
“Expert structural engineering skills and experience are required to optimise heavy vehicle access, and to generally manage and operate bridges safely and efficiently.”
The guideline was developed through a national and international literature review and significant stakeholder consultation.
Dr Torill Pape represented AECOM during the project development and is now the Director (Structures Design, Review and Standards) at the Department of Transport and Main Roads Queensland.
She said, “We knew there were several guidelines and standards in existence for contemporary asset management practices that we could leverage off, but we were ultimately trying to find specific documents to provide a holistic approach related to bridge asset management.
There are many and varied standards and documents used by road asset owners and managers. While those documents contain firm foundational guidance, they are often generic
and are not
easily applied to specific assets, such as bridges.
“The literature review confirmed our suspicions that such a document for bridges did not exist in its entirety.
“The stakeholder consultation revealed that most bridge asset management practices in Australia and New Zealand adopted varying approaches to bridge asset management, with the majority of them based on bridge inspections and a ‘find and fix’ approach. There was a general consensus that the current system yielded unsatisfactory results and a fresh approach was required.”
The learnings from the project shaped a new framework that is intended to offer succinct, practical guidance on applying the ISO 55000 principles of asset management to bridge management regimes.
The framework reflects a holistic approach to bridge management and shows where bridge management should sit in an organisation, with touch points or line of sight to organisational objectives and overarching asset management strategy.
“It is important to note that this framework is not a standard, rules-based or a prescriptive way of thinking, rather the focus is on engineering and making informed, evidenced-based decisions about the management of bridges,” Dr Pape said.
The framework presents a summary of the core asset management elements over the asset lifecycle and their interrelationships for bridges and for other assets. The individual core elements include outcomes, operational policies, processes, decision methods, systems and data.
Linking investment and outcomes, the framework also promotes the concept of formally measuring asset management performance to differentiate success from failure, demonstrate results that illustrate accountability to customers and stakeholders, and identify gaps or needs that can justify funding.
The structure of the guideline reflects the layout and concept progression of the bridge asset management framework. Key concepts are included, and references provided for further reading.
In recognition of the role that risk plays in bridge management, the guideline’s Section 3 introduces a comprehensive risk management framework.
Dr Peter Shaw, a Director at FMA Engineering Services and one of the authors of the guideline, said that most road agencies had risk schedules at project level.
“Some had overarching risk management policies and processes, and some had a framework identified. However, none were found to have an actual, fully implemented risk framework specifically applicable for bridges.
“The purpose of the risk management framework is to enable informed decision-making for road agencies in relation to risk. Ideally the bridge risk framework will be a subset of the wider organisation risk framework. It can also be developed in isolation if necessary.”
Dr Pape said, “It highlights that we as engineers should understand and actively manage risks that relate to or affect the performance of bridge assets across their lifecycle.”
The framework is underpinned by risk management protocols in keeping with the IIMM and ISO 31000 and consists of four steps.
The first step is to establish the organisational context. This will involve an organisational policy and statement of risk management objectives. The second step is to identify risks. It is followed by the assessing and evaluating risks step which normally depends on the organisational requirements and may involve a risk matrix to compare the magnitude of an identified risk with the level of risk determined to be acceptable to the organisation. The fourth step of the framework is to select an appropriate treatment to manage the risk.
Risk registers or structure management plans can be used to document identified risks and track how they will be addressed via works programs.
Other sections of the guideline cover such topics as understanding the requirements, decision-making methods, maintenance and operational planning, capital renewals planning, financial management and funding, delivery, audit and continual improvement, and bridge management enablers.
In summary, the guideline's key messages for practitioners to remember are:
♦ The function of a bridge is to provide a service that should meet customer expectations
♦ Good asset management should be based on an engineering appreciation of bridges (structural form) not appearance
♦ Risks and appropriate treatments must be clearly identified
♦ Decisions for an asset management process should be justified by quantitative data and communicated in simple language for funding applications
The Western Australian Government has released the state’s first ever Electric Vehicle Strategy, which aims to increase the uptake of low and zero emission vehicles. The strategy is accompanied by a $21 million Electric Vehicle Fund – the largest single investment in EV charging infrastructure in Australia by a state or territory government. Infrastructure spoke with WA Minister for Climate Action, Amber-Jade Sanderson, on the Strategy and EV adoption in the state.
CAN YOU TELL US A BIT MORE ABOUT WHAT THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE STRATEGY INVOLVES?
The McGowan Government’s State Electric Vehicle Strategy outlines a suite of actions, supported by a $21 million investment, to assist the uptake of electric vehicles. It includes measures to install charging infrastructure; develop and update standards, guidelines, and planning approvals; and highlight the development of industry opportunities.
The aim of our State Electric Vehicle Strategy is to provide a pathway to decarbonising road transport in Western Australia.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF MORE EV ADOPTION IN THE STATE?
Increasing the numbers of electric vehicles in Western Australia will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality in our cities and major regional centres. Electric vehicles will also reduce our reliance on imported oil, replacing it with domestically-produced electricity.
Electric vehicles present an opportunity to assist in decarbonising the electricity grid. In the future they will be able to provide vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid services that can soak up cheap excess solar energy during the middle of the day and potentially reduce the need for network investment.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES TO EV ADOPTION IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA?
A key challenge in Western Australia is the vast size of our state and the need for further charging infrastructure. Measures that can be supported at the Commonwealth level, such as introducing vehicle carbon dioxide emission standards, will assist to improve electric vehicle model availability in Australia and Western Australia.
WHAT INFRASTRUCTURE WILL BE NEEDED FOR THE STRATEGY?
As part of the strategy, the McGowan Government will create Australia’s longest electric vehicle fast charging network. This will allow travel north from Perth to Kununurra, south to Esperance and east to Kalgoorlie. The charging stations will be spaced approximately every 200km or less to ensure that public fast charging stations (50kW or more) are available along the designated routes.
WHAT ARE THE PRIORITY AREAS OF ACTION OUTLINED IN THE STRATEGY?
Key actions include:
♦ Up to $20 million for the installation of a public electric vehicle fast charging network
♦ A minimum 25 per cent electric vehicle acquisition target for the State Fleet by 2025-26, which will result in the acquisition of at least 255 electric vehicles over five years
♦ $800,000 for the installation of charging stations in government buildings to support the State Fleet electric vehicle target
♦ Developing and updating standards, guidelines and planning approval requirements to facilitate safe and efficient electric vehicle use and charging
♦ Undertaking a trial of battery electric buses on the Joondalup Central Area Transit Service
♦ Providing reliable and accessible public information on electric vehicles – their features, performance, operation and benefits
♦ Delivery of industry development actions under the Future Battery Industry Strategy Western Australia and Western Australian Renewable Hydrogen Strategy
WHAT KIND OF JOB-CREATING OPPORTUNITIES COULD THE STRATEGY, AND BY EXTENSION MORE EV ADOPTION, CREATE FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA?
The installation of the electric vehicle fast charging network will create jobs in Western Australia, particularly in regional areas. Global and domestic uptake of electric vehicles presents significant opportunities for industry and job creation in this state.
We have some of the world’s largest reserves of the minerals used to create batteries and we have the skills, infrastructure and standards to become a major player in the global battery value chain.
To complement opportunities in the battery industry, the McGowan Government is supporting industry efforts to grow the renewable hydrogen industry, with future potential for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles particularly in the long haul, heavy vehicle sector.
HOW DOES WESTERN AUSTRALIA COMPARE TO OTHER STATES AND TERRITORIES IN TERMS OF EV ADOPTION AND WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE THEM?
The McGowan Government’s commitment to building Australia’s longest fast charging network is one way we are leading the nation in creating the kind of infrastructure needed for Australian conditions, particularly here in WA.
This is a critical step and provides key connection points within every 200km, from Kununurra in the north to Esperance in the south and Kalgoorlie in the east. It will go some way to addressing anxiety about the current distance range of electric vehicles.
However, Australia’s access to the global electric vehicle market is constrained by a range of factors, including less stringent fuel emissions standards and lack of fuel efficiency or carbon emission standards.
The McGowan Government intends to work constructively with the Commonwealth, other state and territory governments, and industry to advocate for policy reforms aimed at ensuring Australian consumers can access a greater variety of electric vehicle models at lower prices.
Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson with WA Premier, Mark McGowan.
The Western Australian Electric Vehicles Working Group, chaired by the Western Australian Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, will assist in coordinating the implementation of the Strategy.
The WA Electric Vehicles Working Group includes membership of several State Government agencies; the energy utilities – Synergy, Horizon Power and Western Power; as well as the Western Australian Local Government Association and the Royal Automobile Club Western Australia.
In addition, the WA Electric Vehicles Working Group will continue to work closely with other stakeholders, including the Australian Electric Vehicles Association, industry, academia, training providers, non-government associations and organisations.
The charging infrastructure network will be installed and operational within three years. The McGowan Government aims to reach a minimum 25 per cent electric vehicle acquisition target, within eligible fleet segments, for the State Fleet within five years.
We will continue to monitor trends in electric vehicle technology and markets, and will review the strategy in the next three years. This will ensure Western Australia keeps pace with and continues to benefit from the opportunities presented by electric vehicles.
The materials used in construction are of vital importance to a road’s safety, performance, maintenance requirements and longevity. They also significantly affect the construction costs of a road project and the total lifecycle cost of the asset. In the second article in a series on road construction materials, Infrastructure takes a closer look at hot mix asphalt, bituminous sprays and concrete mixes.
Hot mix asphalt (HMA) is a versatile road material made up of a blend of bituminous binder, fine or coarse rock aggregates, filler material and mix voids. The identities and volumes of the different components can be customised to achieve the structural performance, durability, functionality and workability characteristics required for the application.
HMA is suitable for use in the wearing course or base course and, in general, is a durable material which will not rut or crack with the application of traffic or environmental loads such as heat, cold or moisture. It can also provide better skid resistance and drainage than concrete, is often less expensive, enables faster construction and is easy to maintain.
The bituminous binder provides adhesive and waterproof properties to the asphalt. It holds the mix constituents together and prevents the mix from flowing and segregating. It is highly viscous (i.e. solid) at room temperature
but can become liquid when heated. Various classes of bituminous binders are available, categorised by their viscosity (ability to remain solid) at 60°C. Those with lower viscosities are suitable for applications with lower traffic loads and cooler climates, while the more solid classes are required for heavy traffic levels and warmer conditions. Binders may also be modified through the addition of polymers or other additives, typically to increase viscosity.
The aggregates within HMA provide stability and strength to withstand traffic loads and correctly spread the loads to the underlying pavement layers through the aggregate interlock and intrinsic hardness of the source rock. Aggregates also provide wearing course skid resistance properties through resistance to polishing. The particle size (or coarseness) and type of aggregate material influence the strength and performance of the mix.
Some aggregate options include crushed and screen quarried products, natural sands and gravels, or recycled
materials such as commingled glass. Coarser aggregates are generally better suited to higher traffic applications and provide better skid resistance, but this also depends on the other components of the mix.
The filler material within the HMA is any particle smaller than 0.075mm, filling voids within the aggregate skeleton. Filler is incorporated into a HMA to increase its stiffness and strength by reducing mix flow. It can also increase the bitumen’s affinity to the coarse and fine aggregate and reduce the amount of binder needed. However, too much filler may reduce workability.
A sprayed layer of bituminous materials is a common option for the surface of roads (aka the wearing course).
A sprayed seal consists of a thin layer of bituminous binder that is sprayed as a liquid, then covered with a layer of crushed aggregate. It can be applied onto a pavement base course, or as a ‘reseal’ over an existing bituminous surface.
Different types include single/single (one application of sprayed binder and one layer of single-sized aggregate), single/double (single application of binder and two layers of aggregate), and double/ double (one application of sprayed binder with one layer of aggregate, followed by a second application of binder and a final layer of slightly smaller aggregate).
Like in HMA, the types of binder and aggregate materials affect the properties of the road surface. Various additives can also be used to modify the mix.
Examples of sprayed seals customised for special purposes include:
♦ Fibre reinforced seals (FRS) –reinforcement from chopped fibres placed onto sprayed binder
♦ Geotextile reinforced seals (GRS) – reinforcement from a geotextile layer to resist cracking
♦ High stress seals (HSS1 and HSS2) – uses light to medium modified PMBs to accommodate moderate traffic stresses
♦ Extreme stress seals (XSS) – uses medium to heavily modified PMBs to accommodate extreme traffic stresses
♦ Strain alleviating membrane (SAM) – uses heavily modified PMB to resist cracking
♦ Strain alleviating membrane interlayer (SAMI) – interlayer between asphalt layers –not trafficable
Sprayed seals are a very cost-effective treatment and are the most frequently used pavement surfacing treatment in regional areas. Sprayed seals may also be used where asphalt production is not available.
These sprayed surfaces are functionally different to HMA surfaces, and do not have the same structural strength or shear stress resistance. They also have different road noise characteristics. As a result, are not usually suited for heavily trafficked intersections or built-up urban areas.
Concrete can provide an extremely durable material for the base course and sub base layers of a road. In many cases, a concrete base for a heavy traffic road can have a lifespan of 30-40 years. However, it can take longer and be more expensive to construct and repair than other options. Concrete is also often considered more environmentally friendly than asphalt, and its components can often be recycled.
Different types of concrete base can be constructed depending on the requirements of the application, with different slab dimensions, reinforcement details and minimum corner angles. These include plain concrete pavement (PCP), jointed reinforced concrete pavement (JRCP), continuously reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP) and steel fibre reinforced concrete pavement (SFCP)
One of the key factors in determining the appropriate concrete mix, structure and thickness for a pavement is the required flexural strength, or resistance to bending stress caused by traffic and environmental actions.
Various types of joints can be used within the concrete base to minimise undesired cracks in the concrete due to environmental conditions, such as temperature-induced shrinkage and expansion of the concrete. These include:
♦ Transverse contraction joints
♦ Transverse construction joints
♦ Expansion and isolation joints
♦ Longitudinal (hinge) joints
Likewise, different steel reinforcements are used to control temperature-induced shrinkage and expansion opening of cracks, restrain the separation of slabs at the longitudinal joints and provide load transfer between slabs when required.
Types of reinforcement include:
♦ Steel bar or mesh reinforcement –to restrict the opening of cracks in the concrete slabs
♦ Steel fibres – to restrict cracks in odd-shaped or acute-anglecornered slabs (e.g. roundabouts)
♦ Tiebars – to prevent longitudinal joints from opening, while allowing some rotation from curling/ warping movements
♦ Dowel bars – to transfer load across wider transverse joint spacings where the aggregate interlock is inadequate
The aggregate materials and cement binder used within the concrete are chosen to meet both the strength and workability requirements of the application. The aggregates are chosen for properties such as particle size, durability, water absorption, thermal expansion characteristics and chemical reactivity.
Options include crushed and screened quarried products, natural sands and gravels, or recycled materials. The size of the aggregate particles plays a key role in determining the strength of the concrete, with smaller particle size resulting in stronger concrete, while also generally being more expensive.
The amount and type of cement binder used in the concrete also affects the performance and durability of a concrete base or sub base. Shrinkage limited cement or general blended cement can be used as binders. A higher proportion of cement generally makes for a stronger concrete and makes the mix more workable. This article is part two in a series looking at the different materials used in road construction. Look out for part three in the next
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