As measured in the Audit, national highways include:
■ interstate routes connecting key urban centres across Australia, as defined by the National Land Transport Network174; and
■ key freight routes, broadly those identified by the Transport and Infrastructure Council. The text below provides further detail regarding the criteria for selection of key freight routes as covered in the Audit.
To avoid double counting, this does not include national highways that fall within the capital cities, as they were captured as part of the Audit's urban transport analysis.
Transport and Infrastructure ministers from the Australian and state/territory governments agreed at the November 2014 meeting of the Transport and Infrastructure Council to release maps of an agreed set of key freight routes (both road and rail) across the country. Guiding principles for the selection of the routes were that they:
■ connect existing and potential nationally significant places for freight such as:
- intermodal freight terminals;
- industrial, mining and agricultural precincts;
- significant freight destinations in regional centres; and
- interstate freight; and
■ carry:
- high volumes of freight; and/or
- high value commodities; and/or
- a high frequency of heavy vehicles; and/or
- specific commodities of high economic significance for the region.
The key freight routes are intended to inform decisions by governments and industry on commercial, regulatory and other initiatives.
Further information on the key freight routes can be found in Transport and Infrastructure Council (2014). Where appropriate data was available, these routes were considered in the economic analysis undertaken for the Audit.
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174. The National Land Transport Network is defined in the National Land Transport Network Determination 2014. The current version is Variation 1, dated 19 March 2015. See ComLaw (2015).