Liverpool Sustainable Urban Mobility Study

The rapidly growing community of Liverpool, NSW, faces mobility challenges in both existing suburbs and new expansion areas. With these challenges come opportunities for interventions to enable more sustainable accessibility patterns throughout the region. The iMOVE project FAST: A sustainable urban mobility plan for Liverpool, conducted with our partners Liverpool City Council and the University of Sydney, developed strategies to improve mobility and accessibility outcomes for residents, workers, and others in and around the corridor. The project’s final report is available for download below,

Projects such as the new Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport and the Liverpool City Council’s plans to connect the city to the new airport with the Fifteenth Avenue Smart Transit (FAST) corridor project are transforming the opportunities available in Liverpool.

The Liverpool Sustainable Urban Mobility Study (SUMS) project designed strategies for improved mobility and accessibility for residents, workers and visitors in this outer-urban part of the Sydney basin.

Objectives

The SUMS project designed strategies for improving mobility and accessibility outcomes for residents, workers and others in and around the FAST corridor. It applied domestic and international urban mobility planning experience to the outer-urban context of fast-growing Liverpool, focusing on new release locations and existing locations with significant socio-economic challenges.

iMOVE and Liverpool City Council engaged University of Sydney and Arup as research and development consultants, to develop the study with a focus on the areas of Miller, Middleton Grange and Austral.

The study assessed the suitability of key transport and land use scenarios in order to identify recommendations that are practical, sustainable, complimentary of outstanding committed transport infrastructure, and commensurate with national, regional and local policy.

Objectives include increasing connectivity to the airport to support jobs growth and airport viability, as well as optimising public transport infrastructure and accessibility.

The study proposed recommendations with indicative staging that align with the draft Local Strategic Planning Statement. It also included policy actions to help inform the review process of Liverpool Council’s Development Control Plans (DCP) and Local Environmental Plan (LEP) process, as well as support the Liverpool Local Housing Strategy and improve transport services.

Context

With a residential population of just over 204,000 people, the Liverpool LGA is one of the fastest growing areas of Australia and is emerging as Sydney’s third CBD.

Liverpool has significant urban mobility challenges, along with relatively low public and active transport mode share. The region’s road network experiences high levels of congestion and delay, with concerns about the transport network regularly featuring highly in Council’s community engagement and outreach activities.

Vehicle ownership rates in Liverpool are higher than the NSW metropolitan average, indicating a strong dependence on private cars. This is exacerbated by the lack of public transport travel time competitiveness and convenience, which reinforces the need for residents and workers in the area to travel by private vehicle.

Road safety analysis

Australia is slowly increasing adoption of electric vehicles (EV), mostly passenger cars. Adoption of electric heavy vehicles is very low, although state governments have committed to transitioning urban bus fleets to battery EVs. The Australian approach has been small pilot programs, which tend to focus on metropolitan areas.

For example, the Queensland government has committed all new TransLink-funded buses to be environmentally friendly from 2025. The NSW government is transitioning its 8,000+ diesel and natural gas public transport buses to zero emissions technology. Victoria will add 36 zero-emissions buses to its public bus fleet over the next three years. South Australia is trialling hydrogen fuel-cell electric buses. In Tasmania, the government is trialling battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell buses. The ACT has 16 electric buses and will add 90 over the next three years.

WA started with a trial of electric buses in the Joondalup CAT network in early 2022; and, in January 2024, a timeline for the transition of the Transperth bus fleet was released, initially with 130 new locally-built electric buses. Currently, the Public Transport Authority of WA manages a comprehensive network of regional school bus services, with independent contractors operating 935 diesel-powered buses.

Each of the 935 school buses have a 17-year contract, with an average of 55 buses replaced annually. This research showed that there is now no economic or technical barrier to the transition to a 100% electric school bus fleet in WA. A new diesel bus contracted today will be in service until 2041.

Global and NSW mobility trends

The Liverpool Sustainable Urban Mobility Study (SUMS) identifies several key trends influencing future transport planning, both globally and locally in New South Wales. These trends include the shift toward sustainable mobility options, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions through active transport and public transport. Globally, initiatives like ‘Sustainable Mobility for All’ emphasise the importance of green mobility, universal access, and efficiency in transport systems.

In New South Wales, emerging trends include increased adoption of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and Mobility as a Service (MaaS), both of which will transform how people move throughout cities like Liverpool. Resilience planning is also gaining importance, ensuring that transport infrastructure can withstand disruptions like climate change and cyber-attacks.

FAST Corridor Design Framework

The Fifteenth Avenue Smart Transit (FAST) corridor forms a critical component of the infrastructure to support Rapid Bus Connections and Improved Bus Connections between Western Sydney Airport and Liverpool, as outlined for short-term investigation in Future Transport 2056.

The FAST corridor is designed to use electric, autonomous technology to connect Liverpool residents to the range of commercial, educational and industrial employment opportunities associated with Western Sydney Airport, while also inducing sustainable transit-oriented development along its route.

The corridor aims to efficiently and reliably connect Liverpool to the airport, stopping only at key centres of growth along the corridor, to balance journey time with place-making opportunities.

Liverpool City Council’s vision for the multi-modal corridor is place-led infrastructure design, which should be green, heavily vegetated, functionally cool and attractive. It intends to prioritise public transport modes, low emissions modes, separated bicycle lanes and pedestrian walkability.

Key transport opportunities

A Preliminary Engagement Report identified five priorities for improving Liverpool, based on community feedback. Three of these priorities are explicitly related to transport: better roads, better public transport and more car parking.

The top transport priorities identified by the community were the need for fast public transport and reducing neighbourhood congestion. Meanwhile, the need for more walkable neighbourhoods was also identified as a top liveability priority.

Accessibility analysis

The Liverpool Sustainable Urban Mobility Study (SUMS) conducted an in-depth accessibility analysis to assess how well different parts of the region are connected to key services and opportunities.

The analysis explored accessibility by walking, cycling, public transport, and driving to determine how many jobs, schools, and hospitals could be reached within 15, 30, and 45-minute thresholds.

The study revealed that access by public transport, especially to jobs, was limited in certain areas, and improvements to the bus and train networks could significantly enhance connectivity. Walking and cycling access was also analysed, showing that strategic infrastructure investments – such as new bike lanes and improved pedestrian pathways – could greatly improve local accessibility.

The analysis also considered the impact of future land use and network configurations, such as the pyramid versus uniform land use patterns. The pyramid land use scenario, which concentrates jobs and services in central hubs, was shown to provide the greatest accessibility, particularly in terms of public transport and walking access. In contrast, the uniform land use scenario offered more even distribution of access across the region, but at the cost of lower overall connectivity.

This accessibility analysis forms a core part of the recommendations for enhancing transport services and ensuring that residents, workers, and visitors can conveniently access key services within the Liverpool region.

Recommendations for the Local Strategic Planning Statement (LSPS) to address these priorities included the amendment of the LEP and relevant environmental planning instruments to preserve the FAST corridor. They also advocate for a fast rail service between Liverpool City Centre and the Sydney CBD, as well as enhanced integration with future rail links.

Locales

Miller

A suburb of Sydney in the City of Liverpool local government area, Miller is home to more than 3,000 people in an area of 1.25 km2, according to 2016 census data.

Two key locations in this suburb are Miller Central and TAFE, where many opportunities are located including shops and educational services. There are potential links to the walking and biking network around these two points of interests, which could improve local access to jobs and population in the near future.

One approach to this will be reconfiguring the walking/biking network by adding extra links to shorten travel distances. Some of the links are easy to build, while others might require future property acquisition.

Middleton Grange

Another a suburb of Sydney in the City of Liverpool local government area, Middleton Grange Miller is home to more than 5,000 people in an area of 2.5 km2, according to 2016 census data.

Currently, there is only one bus route serving Middleton Grange. Four potential alternative bus routes offer improved access and traverse across the future town centre and residential area in the northern half of the district, which currently lacks any transit access.

All routes are proposed to start and end at Liverpool train station, running in bi-directional loops, to enable maximum connectivity to the closest train station.

Future transit options should connect Middleton Grange with points west, as the FAST corridor, Airport, and Aerotropolis precincts develop.

Austral, Rossmore, and Kemps Creek

These presently peri-urban areas on the outskirts of Liverpool are largely agricultural but slated to be designed. Austral is already seeing significant interest from developers.

There are opportunities to design development patterns that are more sustainable, that produce more access, and that serve walking, biking and future transit passengers.

The aim is to find the land use and network pattern with the highest transport access to serve the proposed populations of the three precincts, given the anticipated surrounding developments and planned network investments, especially those to service the Western Sydney Airport.

Recommendations

Short timeframe general recommendations for Liverpool City Council to consider include developing a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan which incorporates a Health Impact Assessment, as well as reviewing the transport network against the TfNSW Movement and Place Framework.

In terms of improving walking access, short timeframe recommendations include increasing the amenity of the existing pedestrian network through the installation of lighting, improvements to sightlines and provision of high quality surfacing, and ubiquitous marked crosswalks.

The medium timeframe includes developing a walking strategy that identifies a principal pedestrian network of safe and direct routes. The long timeframe includes installing footpaths on all streets and linking to the wider pedestrian network.

Improving bus access includes procuring a bus coordination role within Council in the medium timeframe and implementing e-buses in the long timeframe. Coordinating bus services with train operations is in the short timeframe, with increasing T5 frequency to Parramatta and fast train service to Sydney CBD is in the medium timeframe.

Improving auto access in the short timeframe includes increasing minimum provision for disabled parking, as well as reviewing and adapting DCP parking controls. The medium term includes developing a parking management plan and providing electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

There are also short, medium and long timeframe recommendations for improving cycling, taxi and freight access.

Next steps

All recommendations has been sorted according to an initial assessment of their impact and ease of implementation. More than half of the recommendations are both relatively easy to implement and has a high impact on the objectives of the FAST corridor and the LCC LSPS – although they are a mix of short, medium and long timeframe actions.

Developing a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan and reviewing the transport network are the two most logical next steps.

Beyond these, other high impact, easy implementation and short timeframe recommendations that LCC can investigate directly following the conclusion of this study relate to walking and cycling.

Walking recommendations include increasing the amenity of the existing pedestrian network, reviewing the transport network and ensuring that new developments prioritise sustainable transport.

Cycling recommendations include reviewing DCP Controls with a view to require more stringent minimum cycle parking standards for new developments and minimum end of trip facilities for new developments.

Download the final report

Download your copy of the final report, Liverpool Sustainable Urban Mobility Study, by clicking the button below.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT