The Australian Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics (BTCE) reports that contracting out roadwork will help to reduce the public costs of road construction and maintenance.[131] While private investment in roads is a relatively recent development in Australia, the government has reported that "[p]rivate toll roads appear to be built with fewer delays and at lower cost, compared to public untolled roads."[132] By 1995, private contractors were already performing 27 percent of the maintenance on public roads and 42 percent of the construction.[133] Both numbers have been increasing since.
Several examples from Australia serve to highlight the benefits of public-private partnerships in road construction and maintenance. In Sydney's Liverpool region, the responsibility for roadway maintenance switched during the years of 1991 and 1992 from the Road and Traffic Authority to a private contractor, Boral. During the same time, maintenance costs fell by 40 percent. The BTCE reports that the cost reduction was accomplished mainly though Boral's flexible employment practices such as subcontracting and shifting work hours. Another example comes from the Clare District Council in rural South Australia. There, the Council divided its road grading work between public employees and private contractors as part of a pilot test. For the public employees, the cost per kilometer graded was about $60. For the private contractor, cost was a low $30. Finally, the governments of Queensland and the Northern Territory took different approaches to maintenance work on the Barkly Highway. Maintenance work on the Queensland stretch was done by public employees, while work on the Northern Territory portion was done by private contractors. For the public employees, the cost per kilometer of road maintained was $3,356, while for the private contractors costs were only $690.