ITS Monday: Edition 35, 2025

Transport will make or break Australia’s new climate plan – and time is running out to fix it

Professor Hussein Dia writes in The Conversation his response, amongst other reports and initiatives, to the Federal Government’s Net Zero Setting our 2035 target and path to net zero.

“Transport is Australia’s third-largest and fastest-growing source of emissions. The sector is widely considered difficult to decarbonise, because it’s not easy to use renewable electricity in shipping and aviation.

On current trends, transport will become Australia’s largest-emitting sector by 2030. Unless this problem is tackled head-on, Australia’s new climate target cannot be met.”

Related iMOVE articles:

• FACTS: A Framework for an Australian Clean Transport Strategy
• Being a V2G trailblazer: Lessons for mass market adoption

Related iMOVE projects

• Leading the charge in bi-directional charging
• Utrecht to Australia: Unlocking scalable, low-cost V2G
• The future for hydrogen heavy vehicles & infrastructure in NSW

Proximity is the enemy of mobility (and mobility is the enemy of proximity)

One of Professor David Levinson‘s latest blog pieces. “Proximity, how near things are to each other, doesn’t just substitute for mobility, how quickly we can move on the network across space, it undermines it. Higher density slows people and vehicles down. Narrower streets, more intersections, more stations, more people crossing all reduce speed.

Mobility, in turn, undermines proximity. The faster and farther people can travel, the more spread out development becomes. High mobility makes low density possible, and in practice it induces it. Developers follow the roads and rails outward. That lowers the chance of dense, walkable centres forming in the first place.”

Related iMOVE article:

• Traffic Congestion: Info, Projects & Resources

Cycling route choice preferences: A taste heterogeneity and exogenous segmentation analysis based on age, gender, Geller typology, and e-bike use

This is a new academic paper in which its title gives you a strong indication of its content, but here’s the abstract anyway … oh, and it’s co-authored by Tanapon Lilasathapornkit, Debjit Bhowmick, Ben Beck, Hao Wu, Christopher Pettit, Kerry Nice, Sachith Seneviratne, Mohit Gupta, Hai L. Vu, Trisalyn Nelson, and Meead Saberi.

The abstract:

A range of factors influences cyclists’ route choices, yet infrastructure design often fails to account for the diverse preferences and needs of different groups. This study examines cycling route choice preferences using revealed preference GPS data from Melbourne, Australia. Path Size Logit (PSL) and Mixed Path Size Logit models are estimated to capture path correlation due to overlapping routes and taste heterogeneity in route choice preferences among cyclist groups, segmented by age, gender, e-bike use, and Geller typology.

Using a hybrid generalized Breadth-First Search on Link Elimination (BFS-LE) approach, the study enhances the quality and diversity of the generated choice set. Results indicate significant taste heterogeneity in route choices, with distinct preferences across cyclist segments. Risk-averse cyclists, particularly women and the “interested but concerned” group, showed a strong preference for protected bike lanes and off-road paths. In contrast, more confident cyclists, such as “enthused and confident,” exhibited greater flexibility and were less sensitive to infrastructure types, slopes, and turns.

Traditional bike riders were found to be more sensitive to infrastructure variability compared to e-bike users. Findings also revealed that cyclists, on average, perceived a 1% increase in the proportion of a route on an off-road bike path as equivalent to a reduction of 80 m in trip length, though this effect varied across individuals.

Similarly, a 1% increase in the proportion of a route on a protected bike lane was, on average, equivalent to a reduction of 61 m, while each additional turn was perceived, on average, as adding 121 m, highlighting the variability in how route complexity influences cyclists’ choices.

Overall, the study offers valuable insights for urban planners and policymakers, emphasizing the need for inclusive cycling infrastructure that accommodates the diverse preferences of different cyclist groups to encourage broader participation.

Combining participatory budget and cost benefit analysis: A hybrid project evaluation framework

A new working paper from the team at the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, co-authored by John Rose and Andrea Pellegrini.

The abstract:

This paper introduces a novel hybrid methodology proposes integrating Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) with Participatory Budgeting (PB) to enhance public sector decision-making. To highlight the approach, we assume that CBA has been conducted to evaluate twelve independent infrastructure and service projects, establishing their economic viability. Subsequently, PB is employed to elicit community preferences regarding the same projects, ensuring alignment with public values.

The combined framework aims to reconcile technical efficiency with democratic legitimacy, promoting government outcomes that reflect both expert analysis and citizen priorities. Our findings reveal a strong community preference for projects that improve health outcomes and utility infrastructure, while initiatives focused on transport electrification received comparatively low support.

These results underscore the importance of incorporating public sentiment into investment decisions, particularly in sectors where societal benefits may be perceived differently than economic returns.

Missing the train: How measuring access not time can get Britain’s growth back on track

“You may have recently read about the newly opened Northumberland Line, where passenger numbers have exceeded five times the predicted number. It’s easy to attribute this to some local miscalculations or perhaps an underestimation of fans heading to St James’ Park.​

But this is more than just a local story. It’s a national narrative about how we invest billions of pounds in transport infrastructure and how we are missing out on ‘growth-boosting’ rail projects in towns and cities up and down the country by measuring the wrong thing, time saved not improved access.”