Trabajos futuros

The nature of freight task in Australia is diverse, involves various scales of operation, services and activities (BTRE 2006b). The freight task mainly involves interstate freight movement, long haul freight movement such as

mining regions to ports, and short haul freight movement, for example freight movement within capital cities (BITRE 2010b). Figure 4.4 shows the domestic freight movements in Australia.

The ports of Australia are central and integral part of Australia’s freight supply chains (Infrastructure Partnerships Australia 2009b). As important infrastructure in regions, regional ports act as links in the freight networks of Australia to facilitate export, import and shipping. Figure 4.5 shows an indicative map of the national land freight network. Most of the catchment areas of freight for port related supply chains are regional Australia, cities, mining or agricultural areas. As such, any congestion in ports has a potential ripple effect down to the distant regional areas (Infrastructure Australia 2011).

The potential ripple effect is overcome through the broader national land freight strategy. It is an integral part for the national ports strategy in Australia (NFF 2010). The consistency among the national land freight strategy, transport infrastructure and the national ports strategy is vital. It provides interoperability, network improvement, planning, ownership, regulation, and community service obligations. It is the cornerstone in providing competitive advantages to Australian products including agricultural commodities (Infrastructure Australia 2011). Many freight movements in Australia require multi-leg journeys, which involve several modes. While air transport involves a high value, small volume freight movement, road remains the dominant mode of freight transport (BITRE 2010b; BTRE 2006b). Nevertheless, rail and shipping freight transport has a vast potential to carry a large amount of bulk commodities per vehicle (Infrastructure Australia 2011).

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Figure 4.4: Major Australian domestic freight movements, 2006-07

Figure 4.5: Indicative map of a national land freight network

Source: Infrastructure Australia (2011, p.6). Within domestic freight movement, very little direct competition exists between road and rail in Australia. The exception is the inter-capital non- bulk freight market segment and branch-line grain transportation where road and rail compete (BITRE 2009d). Conversely, the sea freight movement between East coast states and Perth, in the West, competes with rail (BITRE 2009d). As an intermodal linkage, rail movements significantly take place between iron ore or coal mines to Western Australia ports in tonnage terms (BITRE 2012). This process also takes place in a smaller scale but similar way for minerals, grain and steel products as outlined in Figure 4.6, which show rail lines used for intermodal movements in Australia.

Figure 4.6: Intermodal movements in Australian rail network

Source: BITRE (2012, p.4). A new and prompt plan to cope with this rapid growth is critical as building new transport infrastructure requires longer lead time and can have substantial impact on the Australian way of life (LINC 2006). Currently, road and rail perform most of the domestic freight task in Australia, while coastal sea freight plays an insignificant role (Infrastructure Partnerships Australia 2009a). As shown in Table B-3 in Appendix B, the tonnage of coastal shipping performed approximately 2% of the total domestic freight task in 2006-07 (BITRE 2009c, 2011a). In terms of tonne-kilometres (number of tonnes multiplied by distance travelled in kilometre), coastal shipping performed of around 25% (see Table B-4 Appendix B) of the total domestic freight task (Ports Australia 2011). The performance of coastal shipping increases in terms of tonnage-kilometres as coastal sea freights travel longer distances in those routes.

Beyond the domestic freight task, sea transport dominates international freight, both for bulk and non-bulk freights (Infrastructure Partnerships

Australia 2009a). Sea transport performs approximately 99% of international freight task of Australia (BITRE 2011a; Ports Australia 2013b). In addition, State and Territory contributions for international and coastal sea freights vary considerably (see Table B-5 and B-6 in Appendix B). This indicates State-wise variations in exploring the potential resources of the regions and a lack of gaining competitive advantages of the regional products to global market. However, the total freight is rapidly increasing. An inability to address the anticipated freight growth of Australia has the potential to create other problems such as urban congestion, pollution, slow delivery times and thereby increase delivery costs . This may have immense impacts on socio-economic condition and regional development efforts as Australian products may lose the competitive advantage. As a result, Australia’s national income may be reduced and standard of living may deteriorate.

The National Land Freight Strategy suggests various methods to cope with the future growth of freight task in Australia. The most significant methods include the best use of infrastructure; the integration of freight; greater responsiveness of infrastructure to demand; an introduction of dedicated freight infrastructure; and long term land use planning which includes land reservation for future infrastructure development (Infrastructure Australia 2012).

In addition to these strategies, a review of Australia’s freight transport task indicated freight clustering, intermodal connectivity of ports to hinterland, freight clustering sites and further use of coastal shipping were strongly recommended (NTC 2006). The review also suggests fair pricing of infrastructure by internalising the externalities and adjusting the cost of wear and tear, and promoting the use of more efficient vehicles. All these suggestions indicate better utilisation of port infrastructure and coastal

shipping in Australia. The increase of the share of coastal shipping can be a facilitating factor for sustainable freight movement.

Beyond a sustainable freight movement at the port, the productivity of a port is influenced by the freight agility through the supply chain. In many instances, the freight to and from ports typically involves inter-modal activities and cluster sites (Infrastructure Partnerships Australia 2009b). The discussion paper on the National Land Freight Strategy of Australia clearly identifies freight cluster sites of Melbourne (Western interstate and Donnybrook), Sydney (Moorebank and Eastern Creek), Brisbane (south west Bromelton and north), Perth (Kewdale/Forrestfield), Gold Coast and Canberra (Infrastructure Australia 2011). The intermodal connectivity of these freight sites to regional ports is critical for smooth flow of freight. The paper also identifies five metropolitan ports and some networked ports in regional centres. These networked ports include Townsville, Abbot Point, Gladestone, Newcastle, Port Kembla, Hastings, Geelong, Portland, Esperance, Bunbury, Port Hedland, Dampier, Geraldton/Oakajee, Darwin, Launceston/Bell Bay which are the principal freight nodes (Infrastructure Australia 2011). The strength and sustainability of consolidation of ports within regions depends on the consistency of both physical and strategic connections among freight clustering sites. The port strategy towards regional development may contribute to increasing this effort.