Urban public transport: a vehicle for travel demand management?

Public transport is frequently put forward as a principal means by which cities will be able to cope with the combination of increasing travel demands and decreasing environmental capacity to cope with the consequences of increasing energy usage. Sometimes, by implication, public transport is seen as being able to achieve those objectives on its own. To a large extent, however, such calls ignore complex realities of Australian cities. This paper outlines some of those realities and attempts to assess the extent to which public transport can be expected to play a role in travel demand management. Whilst public transport undoubtedly has an important role to play in the future management of our cities and of travel in them in particular, provision of public transport infrastructure and services, on its own, can have only limited impact in reducing the demand for private car travel. The paper draws on recent studies in Perth to illustrate the magnitude of the changes required. Public transport strategies must be reinforced by strategies to change urban form to be more conducive to being served effectively by public transport and to ensure that the costs of travel are properly perceived at the time of making travel choices. In simple terms, these may be expressed as higher densities and higher variable costs.