Forecasting transport demands and mobility in remote Australia

Communities in remote Australia face unique challenges to mobility that need to be overcome in order to conduct everyday activities. Towns with small populations spread over a large proportion of the country are often located at significant distances from other towns and from essential services including health care, education, retail and employment opportunities. Commercial interests and the general population are reliant on transport networks that are primarily road-based but also rail and air connections. Roads in particular can range a great deal in quality and include unsealed tracks prone to disruptive events such as flooding on a regular basis. Forecasting tools can inform planning processes associated with providing for the future mobility needs of these populations. Development of such tools is hindered by the absence of consistent and reliable data across remote communities, especially in relation to mobility, patterns of travel, transport preferences and attitudes. There is a need to understand the travel behaviour of people who live in these remote locations. This paper describes the ongoing research into the development of a transport planning tool for the population mobility and transport futures of remote Australian communities. The collation of information sources, collecting of new data and applying modelling routines is described with key outcomes to date as they relate to forecasting the implications of future population changes and provision of multimodal transport alternatives.