Regional community transport: Improving employment options

Many regional communities in South Australia face a paradox of persistent job vacancies alongside unemployed or underemployed people who are unable to access work due to transport and driver-licensing barriers. In the Mid-North and North-West Country regions, limited transport services, lack of access to private vehicles, complex licensing processes and fines-related licence suspensions prevent many jobseekers from participating in employment, training and education.

This project brings together the Australian Community Transport Association (ACTA), Adelaide University and regional partners, including the Local Jobs Network to design, pilot and evaluate an integrated, place-based solution.

It will map local transport and licensing systems, identify service gaps, and work with communities, employers and government agencies to test practical pathways that connect people to jobs. These include coordinated community transport services, locally delivered driver-licensing support, and fairer fines-resolution pathways.

Through generation of real-world evidence on what works, at what cost, and under what conditions, the project will deliver a scalable model to strengthen workforce participation and reduce transport disadvantage in regional South Australia and beyond.

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Participants

• Australian Community Transport Association (ACTA)
• Adelaide University
  

Project background

ACTA and Workforce Australia – Local Jobs partnered to undertake a focused desktop review of the key barriers to workforce participation in two priority employment regions of South Australia: the Mid-North and the North-West Country regions. This research identified that barriers relating to transport, vehicle access, mobility, and driver-licensing are significantly constraining jobseekers’ ability to enter and sustain employment.

Across both regions, jobseekers face limited access to reliable mainstream transport, long travel distances, and a lack of affordable or accessible pathways to obtain a driver license. Economic and transport disadvantages, geographical isolation, and social circumstances further compound these barriers. As a result, many jobseekers struggle to attend employment services, participate in interviews, reach training locations, or maintain work once employment is secured.

Structural challenges also play a significant role. Complex or bureaucratic licensing processes, the limited availability of accredited assessors to conduct Vehicle On-Road Tests (VORT), and the absence of accessible Work and Development pathways to address fines-related debt restrict many people, particularly those from low socioeconomic or diverse backgrounds, from obtaining or reinstating their license. Without a license and without access to a private vehicle, individuals are effectively excluded from the labour market.

These challenges are particularly acute given the region’s labour market profile. ABS data shows the leading employiment industries across the Mid-North and North-West Country regions are:

• Health care and social assistance
• Retail trade
• Agriculture / forestry / fishing and aquaculture (primary production)
• Education and training, and
• Manufacturing /wine production / mining.

Many of these industries require workers to hold a current driver license, either for machinery and equipment use, travel between dispersed worksites, or simply to demonstrate reliable transport to meet roster requirements.

This project seeks to map the current transport ecosystem and driver-licensing landscape across three regions through structured data collection, including analysis of existing services, mobility networks, and the barriers faced by jobseekers and residents. Using this evidence base, the project aims to design an integrated transport and mobility model to pilot and assess for effectiveness and value for money.

Importantly, the project will also consider how the model’s principles, pathways, and integrated service approaches could be adapted and applied in other regional areas across South Australia, and, where appropriate, in comparable regional and remote communities across other Australian states and territories.

This ensures the model has broader relevance and scalability, contributing to national efforts to address transport disadvantage and workforce shortages in regional Australia.

The proposed model will focus on building workforce capability and expanding labour supply by mapping and proposing pathways to co-ordinating the efforts of community transport providers, job and skills networks, driving schools, Registered Training Organisations (RTOs), local transport authorities, and employment services. It seeks to enable jobseekers to access reliable community transport and more accessible pathways to gain or regain their license.

Over the next decade, during which the region’s largest industries are expected to grow, the model aims to strengthen workforce participation, improve access to employment, and deliver long-term economic and social benefits for regional South Australia.

Project objectives

The overarching objective of this project is to develop and test a scalable, evidence-based model to strengthen workforce participation and reduce transport disadvantage in regional South Australia

To achieve this overarching objective, this project seeks to:

1. Improve access to transport for employment, training and education
2. Improve access to driver licensing and driver training pathways
3. Address fines- and debt-related barriers to workforce participation
4. Demonstrate feasibility, effectiveness and value for money
5. Develop a model that is scalable and transferable

Please note …

This page will be a living record of this project. As it matures, hits milestones, etc., we’ll continue to add information, links, images, interviews and more. Watch this space!