Light rail in Australia - performance and prospects

Following a decade of heavy investment in busways, most notably in cities such as Brisbane, light rail has re-emerged as an inner-city transit investment for many Australian cities. In the next decade Australian light rail network size is expected to grow by about a quarter with new routes on the Gold, Coast, Sydney, Canberra and Perth. Analysis shows that Australian light rail is dominated by the substantial Melbourne streetcar network, which is one of the largest in the world. Although light rail has not expanded much in terms of network size over the last decade, ridership growth has been substantial (+46% between 2001-2 and 2011-12) and well above system-wide (all mode) public transport ridership growth in most cities. In general, service levels on Australian trams are low compared to European and North American systems. Also service levels have not kept pace with ridership growth, acting to increase the ridership productivity of most Australian light rail over the last decade. Melbourne leads Australia in terms of ridership productivity (passengers per vehicle kms) and Melbourne tram route 109 has the highest light rail route ridership in Australia (935K p.a.) and the highest ridership effectiveness (11.5 boardings per vehicle km). While the contemporary history of light rail planning has focussed on what might be termed the ‘streetcar struggle’, medium term plans for new system development see light rail as a solution for urban access, urban redevelopment and the provision of reliable and higher capacity in congested inner urban contexts.