CityLink was a 22 kilometre, $2.2 billion motorway toll project (Infrastructure Partnerships Australia 2006) constructed to reduce traffic congestion (Muhammad and Low 2006: p.4), improve access to Melbourne and facilitate traffic flow around its central administrative district (VicRoads 2009b; Grimsey and Lewis 2004: p.38) by linking together routes between Melbourne Airport, the port and the city's south-eastern industrial centres (Infrastructure Partnerships Australia 2006). The project consisted of two sections - the Western Link and the Southern Link. The Western Link joins the Tullamarine Freeway with the Westgate Freeway and the Southern Link connects the Westgate and Monash freeways (Infrastructure Partnerships Australia 2006) and involved the development of new and existing roads and infrastructure, six kilometres of tunnels, and traffic management measures (Hodge 2004). CityLink was Australia's largest public infrastructure project at the time of its construction in 1996 (Parliament of Victoria Public Accounts and Estimates Committee 2006: p.57).
Towards the end of 1994, the Melbourne City Link Authority, a statutory body, was established. Subsequently, its responsibilities were transferred to the Office of the Director, Melbourne CityLink (a unit within the Department of Infrastructure) in 2002, then to VicRoads in 2004, back to the Department of Infrastructure in 2007 before its statutory powers were finally returned to VicRoads in May 2010 (VicRoads 2012a)). VicRoads responsibilities are to:
- Monitor the concessionaire's safety regimes (including technical requirements with regard to safety, traffic management and reporting on maintenance and repairs, incidents and emergencies, material damage to CityLink and compliance with the law) (VicRoads 2012a);
- Negotiate, document and manage any commercial issues (or other issues that may lead to contract amendments e.g. Government policy or legislative changes) that arise between the State and its private partner with regard to the toll road's operations (VicRoads 2012a); and
- Resolve disputes that arise under its contractual obligations and monitor developments of the tolling system (Office of the Director, Melbourne CityLink 2002: p.49-51).
During 1995, a private sector consortium, Transurban City Link (now known as CityLink Melbourne Ltd due to stock exchange flotation), was awarded a concession to own and operate the motorway toll initially for a period of 34 years (Infrastructure Partnerships Australia 2006), after which CityLink would be handed over in a fully maintained condition to the State (VicRoads 2009b), at no cost (Office of the Director, Melbourne CityLink 2002: p.6).
The consortium consisted of:
- A partnership between Transfield and Obayashi Corporation, contracted to finance (Cox 2000: p.6), design, construct (Infrastructure Partnerships Australia 2006) and operate CityLink assets (Cox 2000: p.6);
- Baulderstone Hornibrook Engineering, sub-contracted by Transfield and Obayashi Corporation, to build the Western Link (VicRoads 2009b);
- Translink Systems, sub-contracted contracted by Transfield and Obayashi Corporation, to supply the electronic tolling system (VicRoads 2009b); and
- A partnership between Translink Operations and Egis, sub-contracted to provide emergency and environmental road management, incident response as well as routine maintenance (Infrastructure Partnerships Australia 2006).
The construction of CityLink commenced during 1996 (Alonso, Brown and Rojo 2003: p.3) and the tolling of the Western Link began in 2000, with the Southern Link being fully operational by 2001 (Transurban City Link 2001: p.3) due to minor project delays.