Infrastructure Partnerships Australia’s Australian Travel Time Metric has found outer metropolitan Melbourne commuters spend an average of 79 hours in traffic yearly.
The report is comprised from Australia’s regular measurement of actual road network performance using anonymised and aggregated Uber data covering 2015 to 2019.
Out of the four major cities reported, Melbourne outer metro commuters spend the most time in traffic which the report says strengthens the case for ongoing investment and reform.
It found overall peak travel time reliability worsened by 22 per cent across Melbourne.
The city’s peak delay demand also increased by 12 per cent while the morning off peak improved by nine per cent.
Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, Chief Executive Adrian Dwyer said with the insights of Uber’s data, we can see that before COVID-19 hit, ambitious levels of investment in infrastructure and real-time travel information were starting to bear fruit.
“The good news is the major pipeline of new projects like the Metro, the North East Link, and the West Gate Tunnel are all likely to further improve travel times when they open in the coming years,” Dwyer said.
“This is an important reminder that we cannot take our foot off the pedal on investment and reform.”
He says now COVID-19 has provided an opportunity to reshape travel demand.
“More work needs to be done on improving the quality and depth of real time data for users, integration of transport pricing across modes, and spreading peak demand.”
General Manager of Uber Australia and New Zealand, Dom Taylor said we believe our data, when aggregated and anonymised, can help urban planners and transport officials make smarter decisions for the future of our cities.
“We want to work with cities to ensure we have the infrastructure and policies in place to tackle congestion. These include continuing to invest in public transport and road infrastructure, promoting shared modes and technology, and managing network demand to alleviate congestion,” Taylor says.
“We hope that this report and sharing our data in a responsible way will help support the business cases for some of these crucial reforms.
We know many people are working remotely, for a free home subscription to Roads & Infrastructure click here.
Related stories:
- ARRB data shows significant traffic reduction in wake of COVID-19
- New technical reports detail available materials for low to medium traffic roads
- Report suggests congestion charging for Australian CBDs