3 minute read
From the Editor
from REX Sep 2019
Oliver Probert Editor - Rail Express
Twin challenges of rail freight, road safety present rare opportunity for governments
ON AUGUST 2, THE COUNCIL OF Australian Government’s Transport and Infrastructure Council met for the first time since last November.
The collection of transport and infrastructure ministers from each of Australia’s state, federal and territory governments met in Adelaide to discuss, among other things, two key issues: road safety, and freight efficiency.
A key driver for the first of those two issues was a report from the Australian Automobile Association (AAA), saying Australia will fall discouragingly short of many of the 10-year road safety targets, set out in 2011.
Among the 48 per cent of road safety targets the AAA forecasts will not be met by 2020, is the three-year annual average for deaths from crashes involving heavy vehicles. It was 214 in the latest data, significantly higher than the target of 178.
The AAA criticised government inaction over the eight-plus years since the goals were set out. “It shows not only the scale of the trauma that’s happening on Australian roads, but also the futility of the government’s current playbook on road safety,” AAA managing director Michael Bradley said in the report. Addressing the challenge of road safety will obviously take a range of measures. But one major step is staring the Transport and Infrastructure Council right in the face: an improved environment for rail freight.
Recent analysis from major rail freight company, Pacific National, showed access costs for moving a container via rail between Melbourne and Sydney to be almost double the equivalent costs when using a B-double truck. So it’s not surprising that rail now accounts for less than one per cent of freight movements between the two cities. Meanwhile, a whopping 700,000 potentially deadly B-double equivalent return trips are made up and down the Hume Highway every year.
That’s just one major freight corridor, but it reflects what’s happening all round the country. Last year, Pacific National’s largest east coast competitor, Aurizon, abandoned the rail freight sector entirely after internal research judged it unprofitable.
Decisions like that from Aurizon, and cost estimates like those from Pacific National, serve as a damning indication of policy failure, over decades of unprecedented spending on the construction of new roads and the maintenance of old roads.
In their post-meeting communique, the transport and infrastructure ministers resolved to form a new committee to investigate actions aimed at driving down road trauma. But no reference was made to the road-rail access pricing imbalance, despite an in-person presentation from Pacific National boss Dean Dalla Valle, who also serves as chair of the Freight on Rail Group of Australia.
Reducing access charges for the rail sector, or raising the cost of access for heavy vehicles on our nation’s roads, would be an unpopular move in the eyes of trucking operators and end users who rely on road transport as part of their business. Any additional costs would no doubt be passed down to consumers.
But Australia moves less containerised freight on rail than almost every other similar country in the developed world. Rail is safer, more environmentally efficient, less labour intensive and – if volumes are there and access pricing fair – more cost-efficient on major medium- to long-distance routes than road transport. It’s rare governments can resolve two challenges with one solution. This opportunity should not be ignored.
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