Reducing Car Travel in Australian Cities: Review Report

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of managing car-travel demand in large urban centers and reviews two instruments—urban form changes and public transport improvements—by drawing on the experience of Australian cities. Urban form changes can be achieved by higher population and employment densities. At a city or broad zonal level, the reviews show that higher densities of population and employment lead to lower levels of travel and car use. However, the linkage between urban form changes can be a complex and indirect process at a less aggregate level. Large changes in the urban form may be necessary to produce small changes in car and transit usage. This study also shows that new rail transit investments in the cities of Perth and Gold Coast were only able to reduce car use in the same transport corridor by a small percentage. A significant proportion of the rail users were previous bus users. There is no quick fix to the urban transport problems confronting large cities, and the solution will need political will to implement a package of long and short-term measures.