Key messages

•  Transport infrastructure and operations must be managed under long-term plans.

•  A planning horizon of at least 40 years for very large transport investments covers more than two generations. This is the time it can take for major population flows to respond to significant changes in access.

•  Plans should:

-  align transport investment with an overarching vision for settlement and activity, with land use plans referencing national population forecasts and tested against growth scenarios

-  be based on a nationally consistent movement and place framework

-  address how the links in a multimodal network hierarchy will provide specified mobility and access outcomes

-  be explicitly linked to budgets (with at least a 10-year outlook) that integrate capital and operating costs with revenue forecasts to fund identified user outcomes.

•  Delivering major mass transit in increments will ensure transport investment keeps pace with changing user needs. Delivery stages should include corridor preservation, section- by-section route development and the progressive introduction of public transport enhancements.

•  Combining multiple maintenance projects into programs that industry can deliver quickly and efficiently will provide more certainty for transport asset maintenance and bring forward associated economic benefits.

•  In urban areas, bundled maintenance and minor 'missing link' programs should focus on addressing first and last mile network gaps for people and freight. This will shift demand away from car use by improving active travel connections and public transport interchanges.

•  To improve their place-based transport development capabilities, councils should work across local government area boundaries to connect active and public transport movement networks. These networks should be in place early in the life of land release areas to enable sustainable mode choice and be partly funded by developer contributions and value sharing.