‘Vision’ sets roadmap for transport systems

AUSTRALIA took a stride towards smarter road and rail transport management when federal and state government representatives gave their seal of approval to a 15-point ‘vision’ document thrashed out at the recent 2009 Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Summit in Melbourne.

The governments, whose senior transport officers took part in a round-table session that concluded the summit by drawing up the list of key goals for standardised transport management systems across Australia, appointed an ITS committee to further flesh out the vision document into a national action plan by March.

Designed to make Australia’s transport systems safer and more efficient, the plan is expected to form the basis of a transport submission to a national inquiry into smart infrastructure announced at the ITS Summit by federal transport minister Anthony Albanese for the first half of 2010.

The major stakeholders at the ITS Summit – including the governments, public transport organisations, freight companies, traffic authorities, motor companies, academia and technology providers – also signalled their intention to continue the co-operative approach by agreeing to hold another summit, this time in Queensland in 2011, to monitor progress.

Western Australia was the only state government not represented at the summit, which was held with the backing of the Victorian government.

About 360 delegates to the Melbourne summit heard more than 50 speakers – 10 from overseas – during the two-day conference, which included workshops on various aspects of modern electronic transport technologies.

These workshops focused on subjects such as improving road and rail safety, network management, public transport operation, freight industry efficiency, security and emergency planning, travel and traveller information and reducing environmental impact.

Each workshop was asked to arrive at a range of outcomes which were distilled at the final round-table session into the vision document.

While most of the points are essentially broad ‘motherhood’ statements, lacking detail at this stage, many emphasised the need for a national perspective on these computer and communications systems, along with embracing international best practice.

On the roads, the summit has called for a common architecture and standards for communications, data treatment and sharing.

In the freight industry, the summit delegates called for a government-sponsored body to not only set ITS standards in the industry but enforce them.

ITS Australia president Norm Pigeon said the key to improved transport safety and efficiency was uniformity of standards and systems.

“Distance, whether it is across our country or to reach our markets, has always been our number one transport challenge,” he said. “This ITS vision document will be translated into an action plan for agreement by the major stakeholders.

“This will provide our transport industry with a master plan so each sector can capitalise on the benefits that ITS technologies offer.”