The Australian Government's AusLink initiative represents a new approach to planning and funding Australia's land transport infrastructure. Under AusLink the Australian Government will fund projects that have the greatest contribution to Australia's long-term economic prosperity, irrespective of the transport mode. AusLink will involve an integrated approach to planning, with three complementary levels of analysis:

1. strategic network assessment;
2. corridor assessments and;
3. detailed project assessments.

Projections of future transport demand are a critical input into these assessments. In order to undertake more informed strategic network assessments, the BTRE has developed two models for projecting future non-urban passenger and freight transport demand: OZPASS non-urban passenger travel forecasting model; and FreightSim inter-regional freight forecasting model. This paper outlines the structure of these models and demonstrates their application to projecting future passenger and freight movements across the non-urban sections of the AusLink National Network. Readers should note that the road traffic projections presented in this paper are based on passenger travel and freight movement data for 1999 and road traffic data for various years between 1993 and 1996. These data sets were the most up-to-date data available to the BTRE when the analysis was undertaken. The BTRE intends to update these projections, using more current passenger and freight movements data, more recent regional population estimates and, in cooperation with the States and Territories, more recent road traffic data, when this data becomes available.

• Demand Projections for Auslink Non-Urban Corridors: Methodology and Projections
  

  wp 066 AusLinkDP FullReport [PDF: 5.42 MB]