Stephen Davis – Industry Development & Planning Manager, Bus Association Victoria
Thanks everyone.
Just a bit of a quick introduction - The Bus Association Victoria are a volunteer member organisation. We
have approx. 450 odd members throughout Vic. The large majority of our members are local, rural and
regional school bus operators but we also represent larger metropolitan and regional centre operators as
well.
Our role varies from advocacy to accreditation and assist with compliance. A lot of our members are very
small business and multiple business operators in the sense that they run the farm, the local post office
as well as a school bus.
My role is to assist the bus industry to come to terms with this idea of land use and transport integration.
It is a fairly new concept for most of the operators.
My background is in strategic planning, economics and demographics. I approach Transport Planning
from a slightly different prospective in that I tend to look at the bigger picture.
The presentation I have today is really presenting some high level concepts and ideas based on
observations that we are seeing in terms of growth and demographics and regional economics as well.
Today I want to quickly run through the role and function of road based public transport, elaborate a bit
more on the hierarchy of services, provide you with a bit of strategic context and then talk a little bit
about transport and productivity as a concept of moving away from this idea that investment in freight is
the key to having more productive roads, .i.e. if we can move more people on mass transit we will
achieve better efficiencies in freight. I will provide you with a big audacious idea and you can see there
Regional Development Commissions is something that we don’t have here in Victoria. And then I’m
going to talk a little on integrated land use and transport planning.
In my role we talk about four tiers of transport and that is:
Community Transit: which is around social inclusion – linking people who don’t have the ability to
provide their own private transport options to important things like shops, health services and thing like
that.
Local Employment: about connecting people from home to work and back again and wrapped up in
that is the town-school service which is meeting student demand. We also see that intermodal
connection is very important and that’s about connecting people within the region and outside the region
and then V/Line coaches are another important service that extend beyond the immediate region.
In terms of a hierarchy of services we are just elaborating on the 3 tiers that Stuart and Katherine were
talking about. The local neighbourhood service levels to us is a minimum service level – typically about
1-2 services per hour with relatively short span of hours. Most services in regional areas operate at that
level at the moment.
The next level down is what we consider to be good to excellent services is about 2-3 services per hour
and is more about connecting neighbourhoods to town centre and is an intermodal connector as well.
The optimum service level is where we start to get into this idea of having fast, direct, highly frequent
routes that connect people from a fixed point and operate more like a rail on road or tram service. Smart
bus in Melbourne is that sort of service and I think that a few of those strategically located around
Bendigo would be a massive advantage.
That is just a bit of a picture (referring to slide - Bendigo Transit Network) of the existing bus network in
the context of the rail around Bendigo at the moment and you can see it is spread out quite extensively
and I think that it is a good network that gets a lot of coverage.
Patronage is going well in regional areas (referring to slide - Patronage) and this is taken from the
quarterly official patronage series that PTV publish. This is the December results and you can see there
the last quarter had a growth of 3.6%.
PTV is based on a combination of observation and touch on touch off data. You can see the results are
good and trending above the long term forecast and the stats there have increased 3.1% in the 12
months ending Dec 2013.
This is a good result – you can see there the other modes have decreased marginally. To give some
context, the increase in bus patronage is trending well across metropolitan Melbourne as well. We had a
dip but you can see there that it is trending back towards averaging above the long term forecast even
though it is below it at the moment.
Interesting Demographics, to give some context around the type of population we are planning public
transport for. I know that there is probably a plethora of information around the demographics and more
detailed on what I have here but it certainly informed my thoughts on ITLUS.
To give some context, growth of 1.3% for a regional area is pretty good and when you think about what
drives population growth in a regional centre, it is mostly about in-migration which is to do with jobs
which is a good sign for Bendigo and the surrounding area that there is confidence in jobs growth and
given what we are seeing in other parts of the state with job losses, I think this is a pretty good sign.
The really interesting part of the demographic growth though is in the change in household structure. We
are seeing a fairly significant change from household with children to couple only and single persons
only household and that’s important because it links to the ageing profile of the region. You can see
there that 29% and 30% respectively for those two categories is quite significant compared to the family
households and that really goes towards thinking about what sort of housing market we want to stimulate
in Bendigo in terms of how do we supply housing that meets that. At the moment it is fair to say the
majority of housing is being supplied in detached family hosing which to me suggests there is a need for
more high density.
Going to the ageing profile you can see that there is quite significant increase and part of the explanation
of the previous light is to understand what is going on with this ageing profile. You can see by 2030 Gen
X will be pushing 60 odd whilst the baby boomers will be dwindling off at 80+ but they are still forming a
greater and higher part of the population which from a transport prospective is really important because
we want to make sure that our public transport services are able to keep those people connected in their
communities. The interesting part of that demographic is the ageing households and a very important
part of that in the context of public transport is the proportion of females in the population at that point
simply because they live longer and their needs to connect into the community is probably a bit greater.
I have summed up the comments there with some transport comments in relation to the previous slide
and I think these three points really drive home that social inclusion is a real problem particularly in rural
areas. If we don’t supply the right sort of public transport services we will have a greater number of older
drivers on the road that increases the risk of road trauma, not just to the people around the older drivers
but to the older drivers themselves. Every couple of weeks you see a report of an older driver hitting the
wrong pedal and going into a shop front or swimming pool which is not good.
(Referring to ageing profile) The youth area is also an important part of that demographic and that
proportion of the population is something we need to be planning for over the next 20-30 years and
having services support their ability to get around is also an important part of that. There is not much
difference in terms of need, but this group is a lot more independent in terms of their ability to get
around.
Employment profile is another important factor that I have looked at here. Bendigo is changing and I
was a bit disappointed with the ABS in that they changed the categories and I couldn’t get 2001 census
data to match up so I couldn’t compare apples with apples. But, between 2006-2011, professionals were
the only employment category that actually increased and changed. I probably need to look into that a bit
further to see if there were other things included into that professional category. On the cold face, it
seems to be a shift in the way people are working. The other really interesting part of this is the growth in
community and personal services and that probably has to do with the ageing population and the shift
from the growth and the demand for personal services and things like that.
The intergeneration report put out by the Federal Government in 2010 had the cost of ageing population
as something like 3 times the cost of global warming in terms of cost to the economy yet the focus is on
climate change. I think we need to start looking at how we continue to function as a society with an
ageing population because it takes a long time to reverse.
Bendigo as a regional city – the regional growth plans for me set up a great opportunity to start to
restructure how we plan around our regions. Bendigo, as a regional city is a no-brainer, you only have to
look at the services and facilities here and the critical mass of population and it really does have that
central hubbing role. One of the things I would like to see ITLUs focus on is using this as a framework to
set itself up to the future to really give effect to some of those higher level objectives in the regional
growth plan. An important one there is planning for higher frequency services to change travel habits as
PTV have alluded to.
From a land use planning prospective, this is something I talk about a bit and this is right across any
metropolitan city, not exclusive to Victoria or Melbourne, but the lag in public transport provision is a real
issue. It takes sometimes 5-6 years to get services into a new subdivision and I think if we are planning
good communities in Melbourne, the Growth Areas Authority went to a lot of trouble to build growth area
precinct structure planning guidelines and put a lot of effort into making sure that the urban design part of
those plans was really good but then there was no follow up with terms of making sure that we had
public transport provision in sooner and I think going to PTVs point that the importance of getting
services into new subdivisions sooner is something I would like to see more of a focus on, obviously not
withstanding the budget constraints.
This is really talking about making sure that the land use side of ITLUS concentrates a greater proportion
of new housing into infill areas and I think that’s an important point to think about – how it relates back
into the planning scheme around supporting the housing market to be able deliver higher density forms
of housing and it doesn’t necessary mean central equity style towers but it just means higher / good
quality, well located high density hosing which allows people to make a proper choice. It is also important
from a regional city point of view when people are making choices about where to live. I encountered this
a fair bit in WA when I worked in Geraldton. Geraldton is about 4hrs drive nth of Perth and about a 1/2 hr
flight from Perth airport. People who were working in Geraldton were making a decision that it was easy
for them to fly in, fly out on a daily basis or a weekly basis because Geraldton didn’t have the services
that would allow them to have the same quality of lifestyle that they could have in Perth. So it is
important for those regional centres to focus on developing the liveability factors that make it easier for a
person to say I can have just a good a lifestyle if not better in that centre than I could in Melbourne or
any other capital city. I think that is something that ITLUS should keep in mind at the top of its agenda.
Some observations around things that impact on the ability to supply some PT challenges and reflecting
on that earlier point about growth areas, they typically have low levels of activity which make it hard to
find attractors to put public transport in to our services even though we all say they are needed. Delayed
road and intersection construction make it difficult to get buses into new growth areas where you’ve got a
stretch of 800m or a kilometre of unmade road that’s in the structure plan and ready to go but the funds
haven’t been collected or a developing land owner that’s not ready to go for another three years so there
is coordination and sequencing. Low density housing make it difficult to get critical mass in and
sometimes subdivision and layout and also sequencing can make it difficult as well.
High levels of car ownership for instance in Melbourne, in the outer areas households are now starting
with 2 cars and is not even the case of buying the second car when they realise they are not getting
public transport – they are starting with 2 cars. So that high level of car ownership is a major detractor
from public transport demand because the car’s there, it’s on demand, it goes where you want it to and
from a choice point of view it’s easier to pick up the keys and jump in the car. In some cases existing
routes are infrequent and indirect and sometimes inaccessible and PTV touched on this earlier –
walkability is really an important part of increasing demand for public transport. If you have got good
walkable and cycling destinations, it makes your choices of mode become a lot better.
I know for myself, I live in Brunswick, driving is my last choice. I either walk, ride or get on a tram or a
bus before I would jump in a car and it’s usually only to go on a longer trip.
The reverse of that in terms of PT Challenges in improving the ability to supply, and this is just a bit of
an idea, new statutory requirements for service provisions so if they were similar to sewerage schemes
or water schemes if we had some sort of a user payers contribution scheme that was alongside a
statutory requirement that gets services into an area within two or three years of a certain number of lots
coming online, I think that would be a good starting point because it would give, I guess, a sense of
urgency and a target to aim for. You may not get it a 100% of the time but it would sort of help with that.
Better coordination of intersection construction, and I think ITLUS is a good opportunity to set out a
broad structure for Bendigo to make sure that landuse and transport integration is occurring.
Statutory provisions that support high density housing are making it easier for developers to get their
approvals is also fairly important as it then allows that housing market to evolve naturally.
Things that improve patronage! Developing high integrated and coordinated intermodal network - PTV
have talked about that and I think it is a really good objective and initiative that is ongoing. Developing a
network of functioning hierarchies again is the same thing and improves on road priority. Probably not
such an issue here in Bendigo, but when you’ve got road congestion you have and a bus speeding past
you or a cyclist speeding past you, you really start thinking what am I sitting in this car for – I should be
on that bus. And real time arrivals information - knowing when your bus is arriving, where it’s going – it’s
just so critical. Tram Tracker has been such an advantage for tram users in Melbourne - I can’t talk
enough about that. The technology is not that difficult now, I think Google are working on a system at the
moment that would allow something like that to occur fairly freely and easily so the technology is there,
we just need to tap into it.
Cities with higher rankings of liveability have one thing in common, that is good public transport. (Shows
a pic of Ho Chi Minh City as a sample of what we want to avoid).
Just a bit of academic stuff! The Mercer Quality of Living Survey (2009) showed that Australian capital
cities were slipping down the liveability ranking, replaced by cities that had made substantial investment
in transport infrastructure. (Prof. John Stanley, 2012).
Stanley argues that from a land transport perspective, the top issues affecting liveability are:
Traffic congestion – it still staggers me that national productivity costs $10 billion are annually increasing
to $20 billion. It seems to me we talk so much about wages and cost of living and all that sort of stuff but
yet there’s been nothing done about congestion as a cause of business productivity loss.
Greenhouse gas emissions (transport – 15% of Australia’s GHG emissions). 90% of that 15% comes
from land road based transport which is a fairly significant factor.
Serious road trauma (nationally serious injured 30,000 pa and 1350 fatal pa)
Social Exclusion (27% of households are ineligible to drive). This is made up of people under the age of
18, people with disabilities and people over the age of 75 or 80 who start to lose their ability to drive and
their independence.
Obesity (the average car trip to work in Melbourne involves only 8 minutes walking. The average PT trip
involves 5 times that). 52% of women, 67% of men and 25% of children are considered overweight or
obese.
Energy Security (by 2030 Australia will only be 20% self-sufficiency for transport fuel). Quite significant
and has an impact on fuel prices.
Just a bit of triple bottom line! I quite like this slide because it sums up the benefits of investment into
public transport and fewer cars on the road. Glen (reference to earlier speaker) made the point about
how many cars a bus would take off the road - depends on how flat chat he’s going and stops at the
lights. Those benefits shown go down the page as well as across the page. (refers to slide).
I touched on this earlier, but implicitly what John Stanley was talking about was job security and jobs
growth. If we can do everything we can to make our regional businesses more sustainable and
productive then it makes it really important for retaining meaningful employment in our regions.
For a big audacious idea – Regional Development Commissions is something that has worked really well
for a long time in WA and the idea is that you have within a region a committee of local governments
who coordinate economic development investment in a region and it’s based on strategic planning so
where there has been a plan done it is coordinated through that process.
We’ve got the Regional Growth Plans, granted the one for this region is still in draft form, but it probably
won’t change that much, and I think it is something we should really consider here in Victoria because
it’s a way of sort of helping that region to deliver and fulfil its true potential.
A new governance structure could fall out of that which would allow regional public transport to be
coordinated at a local level with more local input and it looks a little like this (refer to regional selfdetermination slide). So the idea being that PTV or State Government have an overseeing role in terms
of funding, ticketing and policy development but the responsibility for service supply, staging and
infrastructure coordination would sit with the Regional Development Commission, local government with
input from the service operators.
At the bottom up level you have various agencies like Vic Roads, DSE, DTPLI having input also with
community stakeholders community input. The idea being that rather than services being developed at a
level where there are minor adjustments needed that it would be allowed to occur because the funding
would be sitting there and it’s working within your set budget. I have labelled that as regional selfdetermination.
So in conclusion, ITLUS should support the Housing Strategy to facilitate a market for a high quality
higher density housing in appropriate locations.
They should also guide the development of a PT network that supports the needs of the changing
demographics. Importantly access for youth is a critical thing, particularly for weekend and after school
employment were the ability of someone to have a job at the supermarket or Target after school or on
the weekends and their ability to get there independently, particularly in a regional area, is really
important because it adds to the economy, it adds to the social value of the region. ITLUS should also
support access for seniors with limited mobility and high quality services capable of effecting mode shift
for work trips.
At a higher level, I thing ITLUS should also set short, medium and long term objectives for a high quality
public transport network to support the sustainable growth of the city and surrounding region.
ITLUS should both inform and be informed by an employment and industrial land strategy. It should be
designed to make it easier for business to survive and to thrive in the region.