Once a new road opens, people switch back to cars and congestion increases back to a steady-state point of gridlock. For lasting effectiveness, policy needs to include congestion charges and better rail services.
The mathematical modelling of traffic networks can throw up conflicting results.
Flickr/Wendell
The planning for any new road should include plenty of mathematical modelling. But getting the right numbers can be a challenge and there’s the odd paradox to deal with as well.
Amid talk of paths to surplus and investing in infrastructure, both sides of politics seem to have forgotten Australia’s longstanding responsibility to govern sustainably, and not just for the economy.
People travelled a total of 40 trillion km in 2012, mostly by car.
Norlando Pobre/Flickr
Light rail is good for cities, but it’s also expensive, which is why many Australian cities have opted for buses instead. But there is a way to get top-drawer public transport using private dollars.
Plaid Cymru want to expand the Welsh government’s Bwcabus service.
credit: John Bristow
Peak fossil fuel and action on climate change will mean we have less energy available to power the future.
The slow pre-dawn commute on the M5 from western Sydney is more than a pain for these drivers: it comes at a high social and economic cost.
Dean Lewins/AAP
Our new analysis reveals nearly a third of full-time workers in Sydney commutes for more than 10 hours a week. Those workers are spending almost three full weeks a year just to get to and from work.
It sounds like something from the pages of books from the 1960s looking to the future: electric cars powered by current drawn from electrified rails beneath the road. However possible such ideas seemed…
This year, train fares will increase by an average of 2.2%, even though wage growth in 2014 remained below inflation for many people. Inevitably this will lead to complaints of overpricing, as the government…
Uber is as good old reliable taxis - and can be only four times the price.
Lisa S/Shutterstock
Popular cab-hailing service Uber seems as accident-prone as ever, attracting criticism for quadrupling its rate to a minimum of $100 during the Sydney siege hostage situation. Having been criticised in…
Commuting is always a hot topic. This week, I was invited onto a BBC regional radio station to talk about why we find commuting so stressful: a caller had gone on a rant to producers about local roadworks…
Victoria’s voters have spoken – and they have said no to Melbourne’s new freeway tunnel.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
Labor’s state election victory in Victoria has fatally undermined Melbourne’s most controversial tunnel, the now-doomed East-West Link, with new Premier Daniel Andrews pledging to rip up the contracts…
Now the nights are drawing in and the air is chill, many of us stop going out in the evening and retreat to our front rooms to spend cosy evenings curled up with a book or stretched out in front of the…
Bikesharing has exploded in popularity in recent years, including in New York with the Citi Bike program, but the pricing structures have been a cause for concern.
NYCDOT/Flickr via CC BY-SA-ND
Bikesharing has boomed in Europe and North America in recent years following decades of slow growth since its introduction on the streets of Amsterdam in 1965. Like any industry undergoing rapid expansion…
Taxpayers in Britain spend more than £1 billion a year providing free bus travel. Mostly used by pensioners, some disabled people qualify for this concessionary travel, and there are fears that an austerity-driven…
The Airports Commission has finally rejected Boris Johnson’s proposal for a new international hub in the Thames estuary, reinforcing the expectation that Heathrow and possibly Gatwick will be given the…