ITS Monday: Edition 28, 2025

Fuel tax is in trouble, and there are calls for an alternative now

The first three articles this week hit hard on the same topic — road use charging, First up is this story from The Age, with quotes from Helen Rowe, transport lead at Monash University’s Climateworks Centre, and Peter Harris, a former chair of the Productivity Commission.

“Australian motorists should be charged based on how far they drive and their type of car, according to transport experts who warn that the growth in electric vehicles will erode the $17 billion raised through fuel excise every year.”

Related iMOVE articles:

• Road pricing reform: a thorny issue
• Electric Vehicles: Info, Projects & Resources

Stop the free ride: all motorists should pay their way, whatever vehicle they drive

Next up for writing about road use charging is John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics at The University of Queensland, in The Conversation, “In a properly functioning economic system, fuel taxes should be considered a charge on motorists for the harmful pollution their vehicles generate. That leaves the problem of paying for roads. To that end, a road-user charge should be applied to all motorists – regardless of the vehicle they drive – so no-one gets a free ride.”

Petrol cars to be added to New Zealand road-user charge scheme

This week’s third road use charging article comes to us from New Zealand. “Petrol-powered vehicles in New Zealand will soon face distance-based charges – joining diesel, electric and plug-in hybrid cars – rather than a fuel excise, with calls for Australia to follow.”

From research to reality: Bridging transport’s academic-practitioner divide

This is from the University of Sydney Business School’s Thinking Outside the Box series, and could, I suspect, start a few conversations. ”

Transport research often takes over a decade to reach practical implementation, if it ever does. This disconnect serves no one: not academics, practitioners, or the public using our transport systems. There has long been a desire to close the gap between academic research and on-the-ground implementation, and many approaches have been tried, but the gap remains. What is holding us back?”

Want to know how far your new EV can actually go? Take 10–20% off its claimed range

EV range questions made the rounds of the “current affairs” show last week, and here in The Conversation Hussein Dia talks about “real ranges”. “Drivers new to EVs may look at the range figures given by the manufacturer and think that’s how far their new car will go on a single battery charge. But this isn’t quite accurate. In reality, an EV’s actual range is usually less.”

What’s the cheapest way to charge your EV?

Staying with EVs, The Conversation, and Hussein Dia, is this piece. “You’ll pay substantially less to charge an electric vehicle (EV) than if you were refuelling a petrol car to go the same distance. But what often surprises new EV owners is how much the cost of a charge can vary.”

Related iMOVE article:

• Alternative Fuels: Info, Projects & Resources

Related iMOVE project:

• Leading the charge in bi-directional charging

Low cost flat public fare policy: Induced demand, mode switching and policy beneficiaries

A new academic paper, co-authored by John Rose, Andrea Pellegrini, David Hensher, and Matthew Beck. The abstract:

This study analyses six waves of cross-sectional survey data collected both before and after the introduction of a $0.50 flat fare structure across all public transport modes operating within Queensland Australia.

The frequency of public transport trips is reported from 650 to 700 respondents per wave across each of the six waves of data collection, including information on trips that are reported as being trips that would have occurred irrespective of the low fare structure, trips that occurred solely as a result of the low flat fare structuring being introduced, and public transport trips that involve switching to public transport modes from some other mode of transport.

Our findings suggest that the low fare structure led to increased public transport trips due to induced demand, with much less scope for mode switching behaviour. Further, the primary beneficiaries of the fare policy appear to be younger lower income individuals and/or those who are already regular public transport users. As such, consistent with the introduction of low or zero fare policies in other jurisdictions, the introduction of a flat $0.50 fare in Queensland has resulted in increased public transport patronage for some groups, while only limited mode switching behaviour is observed to have occurred.

Related iMOVE projects:

• Implications of large-scale price reductions in public transport fares

Managing paradoxical trade-offs: Sustainability and diversification strategies of supply managers

Another new academic paper, this one co-authored by Behnam Fahimnia, Andrew Collins, and Brent Moritz. The abstract:

This paper investigates how practicing supply managers make sustainable supplier selection trade-offs, with a focus on the paradoxical tensions between environmental and social sustainability, cost, and supply diversification. Using a discrete choice experiment involving 217 experienced professionals, we explore how managers prioritise and balance cost, geographic diversification, environmental sustainability, and social sustainability.

The trade-off alternatives in our experiment are based on empirically observed supplier evaluations from a global FMCG firm. Our findings show that managers resist selecting new suppliers with inferior sustainability profiles and have a willingness to pay a modest premium for improved environmental and social performance. These tendencies are more pronounced among lower-level managers. Managers also place higher value on environmental performance than social performance and tend to view these two sustainability dimensions as substitutes. From a risk management perspective, supply diversification is particularly valued, even when it involves a trade-off with environmental performance.

However, managers are hesitant to add suppliers within the same country unless environmental benefits are evident. Overall, this study provides new insights into how managers value and reconcile competing priorities in supplier selection, offering implications for advancing sustainability and resilience in supply chains.

Towards fair lights: A multi-agent masked deep reinforcement learning for efficient corridor-level traffic signal control

A third new academic paper, this one from the team of Xiaocai Zhang, Lok Sang Chan, Neema Nassir, and Majid Sarvi. The abstract:

This study presents an adaptive traffic signal control (ATSC) method for managing multiple intersections at the corridor level by proposing a novel multi-agent masked deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework. The method extends the hybrid soft-actor-critic architecture to optimize green light timings for intersections across a corridor network, fostering a balance between vehicle flow and pedestrian movements with an emphasis on humanism, fairness, and equality.

By integrating an innovative phase mask mechanism, our model dynamically adapts to the fluctuating demand of different transportation modalities by discovering new states or actions that could avoid local optima and achieve higher rewards. We comprehensively test our method using five naturalistic traffic scenarios in Melbourne, Australia. The results demonstrate a significant improvement in reducing the number of impacted travellers compared to existing DRL and other baseline methods.

Furthermore, the inclusion of the phase mask mechanism enhances our model’s performance through ablation analyses. The proposed framework not only supports a fairer traffic signal system but also provides a scalable, adaptable solution for diverse urban traffic conditions.

Record-breaking bus boardings drive WA transport recovery

“Western Australians are returning to public transport in record numbers, with buses leading the charge in the state’s biggest patronage increase in more than a decade.

Data from the Public Transport Authority show 85.9 million bus boardings in the 2024–25 financial year, the highest on record. The figures contribute to a total of 148.7 million public transport boardings across the network, representing a 3 per cent increase from the previous year and the strongest result in 11 years.”

Your comeback guide to all the anti-cycling arguments you’ll hear this year

This one too could be a real conversation starter.

“You’re scrolling the comments under an article about a new bike lane and there it is: “No one uses them!” Or maybe you’re riding peacefully down a calm urban street when a passing driver yells, “Get off the road!” Anti-bike arguments aren’t just frustrating—they’re outdated, inaccurate, and often repeated without a shred of evidence.

The good news? You don’t have to be a policy wonk or urban planner to shut them down. From tax myths to licensing fallacies and the spandex debate, here’s your ready-made rebuttal list of the most common anti-bike arguments—and the facts that turn them into dust.”

Related iMOVE article:

• Active Transport: Info, Projects & Resources

Related iMOVE projects:

• Safer cycling infrastructure: Design and policy
• Modelling cycling investments in regional areas

Metro Tasmania celebrates Hobart hydrogen electric bus trial

“Operator Metro Tasmania has celebrated its trial of three hydrogen electric buses with key partners and stakeholders. The three bright green zero-emissions buses are part of Metro’s Hobart fleet during its zero-emissions bus trial.”

Related iMOVE projects:

• The future for hydrogen heavy vehicles & infrastructure in NSW
• Simulation and modelling of a hydrogen-electric aircraft