Infrastructure Australia’s updated Infrastructure Priority List illustrates the importance of evidence-based investment decisions, the Chair of the Australian Trucking Association, Geoff Crouch, said today. 

“Today’s release of the Infrastructure Priority List provides critical focus on the need to invest in safer regional roads and fixing urban congestion,” Mr Crouch said. 

“The new project calling for regional road network safety improvements to invest in fixing high-risk sections of regional roads and deliver safer road infrastructure is a critical priority. 

“Infrastructure Australia report that relative to population size, the number of fatalities in regional areas is over four times higher than for major cities. 

“This project now requires government support across Australia, and the ATA strongly welcomes the inclusion of a similar new project by the NSW Government to make regional road safety improvements in NSW. 

“Governments should also support the call for a roads network optimisation program to address urban congestion. 

“First added to the priority list in 2016 but still without a government proponent, Infrastructure Australia have again reconfirmed the need for governments to make multiple, co-ordinated, productivity enhancements to the road network to reduce congestion. 

“These investments should be based on data and seek to optimise traffic flows through investments such as intersection treatments, traffic light sequencing, clearways and incident management.” 

The ATA also welcomes the continued inclusion and expansion of projects to address major road investment priorities. 

“There’s a long list of proposed road, highway and motorway projects which would make a significant investment to improving safety, connectivity and productivity on the road network,” Mr Crouch said. 

Future updates to the Infrastructure Priority List should expand the network-based focus on improving roads to include regional and outback highways and corridors. 

“The need to make better use and enable more productive connectivity extends beyond our major cities and their rural hinterlands, and Infrastructure Australia should include network optimisation and access for investing in better regional and outback highways in future priority list updates,” Mr Crouch said.