PART 05 Beyond offering the chance to learn more about the true state of the network, what does road asset reporting really offer Australia in practical terms? For road funding to begin delivering better value for money in a way that is measurable to governments, industry and community, at least part of future road funding should aspire to business case levels of rigour. What does spending money on a particular route offer freight customers? Will it reduce the cost of their goods to market? By how much? Does it put money back in the community’s pocket? If a truck operator is to be charged more to use some roads, can they measure a real benefit to their business? Where will safety improvements offer the biggest returns? How should competing road projects be measured against each other for funding? Can we measure the likely benefits of all projects consistently, in terms of a rate of return, a net present value and a benefit-cost ratio? Quite understandably, until Australia’s treasuries and private investors can measure the benefits of targeted or increased road spending, road funding and road outcomes are not likely to improve much. The case studies that follow provide further evidence that the availability of transparent road asset reporting affords the chance to move beyond
26
Case studies derived from the pilot report politicised road spending, or road spending based on unquantified ‘hunches’ about where more productive investments would deliver the most economic growth. Publicly-available asset reports allow a market for economic and even commercial road improvements and even community or safety groups into practical business case development process with the road asset owners – the local government road engineering departments and state road agencies. The case studies that follow reveal how these discussions lead very directly to business cases showing a rate of return, a net present value and a benefit cost ratio – in other words, all that is needed for Australia to move towards targeted and efficient road funding. The other major finding of the following case studies is how powerful an effect the introduction of higher productivity freight vehicles on key freight routes can have on the economic viability of road upgrades. In the cases that follow, the roads in question would remain unfunded and without upgrades for a long time to come, but high productivity vehicle access opens the way for these roads to be financed through the increased productivity of the freight task that the better trucks offer. This has nationwide implications for the efficiency of many industries and the state of their facilitating road networks.
Infrastructure Australia National Road Asset Reporting Pilot
Juturna P/L