Jill Lewis - The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport

And it isn’t on any infrastructure list. No
one has looked beyond the amazing
figures of coal tonnes mined and
railed.......and thought, we need diesel
to power those diggers. And food for
the miners, and electrical equipment
etc etc. There is no evenly barely
sophisticated response to a mine boom
supply chain. And no connection
between transport needs and mine
growth (and dollars to government).
There’s definitely no hypothecation
between dollars raised in taxes and
royalties, and the real cost of development
in a region. Oh, and allow half an hour
to get from Mackay city to the airport
which was a ten minute trip. So there is
congestion causing real extra cost
.....and now starting to cause real cost
to industry and the nation.
That’s just one of many congestions
popping up out of economic growth.
The sophistication we lack there is
planning – we haven’t even got in the
helicopter to see the supply chain
creaking and groaning from 30,000 ft.
One arm of government knows what is
going on – it approves the mines.......but
the other arms of government which
provide or organise the infrastructure
are left years, in some cases decades
behind.
I know there are many dedicated
transport and urban planners – you can
usually tell them by the permanent look
of frustration on their faces. They have
sophisticated tools, but generally highly
constrained powers.
Transport Skills shortage...........
The other sophistication is from the two
factors usually least considered in
transport – people and IT.
As anyone with a smartphone will
know, the impact of IT on people is
surely one of the great wonders of the
world. This is not just the speed of
dissemination of information. It is the
ability to change habits......ask anyone
in the music industry or a retailer.
So we have several hundred thousand
people sitting in serious congestion
(your car is at a complete halt in an 80
km/h zone) – and other than the few
doing their makeup or eating their
If IT is changing people’s
habits, one area badly
missed is the use of these
devices and services to
help change people’s
habits to avoid
congestion.
cornflakes behind the wheel, most are
listening to radio (falling rapidly – did
you know that TV new viewership has
fallen three times faster than even
newspaper readership in the last
decade.......) but almost all are connected
to their phone.....and an increasing
number using it, texting, listening,
talking, playing games .......
The first conundrum is that these and
other devices are changing how people
work at work and live at play. People’s
habits within their work and play are
changing rapidly. The second conundrum
is that it has, so far, had little impact on
their ‘daily commute’. The freeways and
major intersections are just as clogged.
In fact we have more congestion at
different times. It has taken a decade,
but seven day trading has only recently
really had an impact on shopping times.
So entrances to major shopping centres
and surrounding roads are crowded
even more often. And the casualisation
of the workforce is having an impact on
what is and where is a ‘peak hour’.
If you live in New Farm in inner Brisbane,
the council has been ahead of the game
and increased bus services as
industrial areas convert to high density
living. We now have buses at five and
ten minute intervals from 5.20 am to
after midnight. The services between 5
and 6 INTO the city are generally
crowded with people going to work in
bars etc, but also IT night shifts....or
those of us bussing to a function.
If IT is changing people’s habits, one
area badly missed is the use of these
devices and services to help change
people’s habits to avoid congestion.
Many devices and systems have been
trialled, but quite simply they haven’t
worked. In the IT habit world, it either
works or it does NOT. Transport and
congestion have not rated (with a much
avoided exception we’ll come to)
Melbourne has a Smart Bus which has
a toe in the water, and maybe we should
continue to accept that as a trial. The
money invested in that highlights the
cost of changing travel habits......as has
done the Smart Travel and similar
informational systems.
There is potential here.
We need to recognise much more how
we can change the habits not just of
commuters, but of consumers and of
industry. The stumblebum attempts to
get transport operators to coordinate
online is unfortunately more farce and
wasted dollars.
Perhaps part of the issue is that as well
as not recognising that changing habits
can be as much part of relieving
congestion as investing in infrastructure,
is that we lack enough skilled people in
transport and logistics. I think you need
on a couple of sets of hands to count
the number of Masters in Logistics
graduates in our universities. The
planners and operators of transport and
transport systems have a dearth of
sophisticated technicians and
management COMPARED TO THE SIZE
INVOLVE | INFORM | RECOGNISE | DEVELOP