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About half of Australia’s population live in the east coast cities of Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne – it is well more than half if people living at points adjacent to this corridor are included. The most recent proposal for a high speed rail (HSR) link has been predictably debunked by government officials and the [...] Taxis are an important part of our urban transport system. The recent inquiries in NSW and Victoria show they are among the least efficiently managed industries in our community. The issue of reforming them is difficult because of the evident need to compensate those who have paid huge amounts for licences with any deregulation. But [...] I gave a talk to (in the main) taxi licence holders at the Dallas Brookes Hall this afternoon. It drew on my recent blog post – indeed I was introduced as the author of then post. It was a tricky situation for me as I do support reform of the taxi industry but I am [...] I attended a meeting today on proposed reforms for the Victorian taxi industry prepared by former ACCC guru Allen Fels with a major input by David Cousins. Opening the PDF version of the Fels Draft Report (here) at least gives you a helpful contents page to what is a long document. There is an executive [...] We know that as a rule the probability of a car accident increases with the distance you drive – for some background on these costs see here. There are also of course personal factors – young hormonal males, for example, are more accident prone. A useful efficiency-based reform that has appeared in insurance markets is [...] There are more traffic accident fatalities in the US (both motorist and pedestrian) on April 15 – the final day that US citizens have to complete their tax returns. Frustration? Angst? Increased nervous tension? Should this be added to other deadweight losses to work out the true cost of a tax? HT Ricardo [...] I’ll talk on local road transport issues tonight in Heidelberg, Melbourne to the Friends of Banyule. It is a public meeting so anyone is welcome. Details at the link. Notes for the talk are given over the fold. (1408) [...] Allan Joyce’s move to ground the entire Qantas fleet today was an inevitable attempt to break the backs of trade unionist reactionaries. As a Qantas shareholder I am dismayed at the current outcome but, as Qantas has not paid dividends for a couple of years, I support attempts to force the airline to gain competitiveness [...] Australia is a geographically large country with a dispersed though highly urbanised population. This creates intrinsically difficult – ‘tyranny of distance’ – transportation issues. Australia relies heavily on trucking as a means of transporting raw materials to population centres and ports but also experiences significant congestion in its capital cities. Traffic accident [...] I always think it crass of people to ask to get invited to a party. In my life I have not received invitations on more than a few occasions so that generally, these days, I am miffed only momentarily. But I was crass enough* to seek an invitation to the Government’s October Tax Summit and, as [...] When I worked on transport sector externality issues recently I became aware of the issue of the impact of air pollution from vehicles on human health. Concern with this issue has subsided a lot over recent years because of improved emissions performance by vehicles. Most attention gets focused on traffic congestion issues and road accident [...] I had a business breakfast in Melbourne city this morning and was rewarded with a free train trip to the city with the ‘early bird’ fare arrangements on offer. This provides free travel if you leave early and arrive in Melbourne city before 7-00am. Apart from saving a few dollars it gave me a pleasant [...] I wrote a brief note earlier this year on how Beijing should resolve its traffic problems. The interesting news over the past few days is that the Beijing administration has announced a whole set of anti-traffic congestion policies. The Vice-Mayor of Beijing in charge of traffic ‘resigned’ the day the measures were introduced and is [...] Can anyone explain to me why Qantas operates only a single daily flight to China, namely to Shanghai? Why don’t they operate direct flights to cities such as Beijing? China is Australia’s fourth largest source of tourists – in 2009 366,000 tourists came from China – and many Australians are now visiting Chinas for business and [...] I’ve been in Sydney most of this week attending the Australia’s Future Tax System – A Post-Henry Tax Review. It had some excellent speakers and was for me – not a taxation specialist – very informative. I particularly liked John Freebairn’s overview and a superb paper by Ben Smith which clarified my views on the resource [...] The Intelligent Access Program offers heavy vehicles improved access to a wider range of Australian roads – and the ability to carry increased loads – in exchange for the vehicles agreeing to carry on board telematic devices that describe where the vehicles are as well as their self-assessed load characteristics (mass, vehicle dimensions, suspension) that [...] The Sunday Age today presents a proposed ‘transport revolution’ for Melbourne prepared by Monash University’s Professor Graham Currie – a ‘transport expert’. The plan recognizes that expanding road supply is not a major sensible option in the face of Melbourne’s ballooning congestion problems and instead argues for creating a ‘road hierarchy’ that gives pedestrians, cars, [...] Again a retrieved post – thanks Christina. (85) [...] Another retrieved post-hacking post. A letter published in AFR on January 16. (1429) [...] David Prentice and I wrote this as a reader’s guide to the main ideas in our longer report for the Australian Future Tax System Review. It is published online by Science Alerts. (132) |
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