What is Driving Us?

Age of urbanisation

The world is entering an age of urbanisation, with Australia already considered to be the most urbanised.Countries are becoming increasingly urban as evidenced by city populations estimated to be growing by 65 million people every year – that is the equivalent of more than 30 new Perth’s every year. It is interesting to think that 30 years ago Perth’s population lagged behind Adelaide, with Adelaide beating Perth to the one million mark in 1983.Since then Perth’s population has more than doubled.

Urbanisation is a real and growing issue for the State. The WA Planning Commission predicts that in the longer term at least 75% of the State’s population will be based in the greater Perth area - that number is expected to hit 70% before 2031.

Continued Environmental Pressures

Much of Western Australia’s environmental heritage is of significant importance from a global perspective and the interface the environment has with our road asset and projects is ever present. We have a natural responsibility to ensure that we minimise our environmental impacts considering the magnitude of our infrastructure. Road infrastructure and road transport will also be faced with many challenges over the coming decades from an environmental perspective including extreme weather events, climate change, declining natural resources combined with emerging issues related to environmental risk and carbon legislation.

Reshaping economies

Whilst globally forecasters believe that by 2050 around 70% of the planet’s population will be urban dwellers, we are also facing a reshaping of the fundamentals underpinning our economies. With emerging economies starting to grow and commodity prices softening, the Western Australian economy is transitioning. While Infrastructure Australia predicts the Australian economy will grow from $1.4 trillion to $2.6 trillion by 2031, Western Australia will transition from the large growth in resources construction of the last few years to one of production, as evidenced by projected growth in export volumes of 10%. WA Treasury is still forecasting overall growth to 5% by June 2018.

In July this year the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry reported $142 billion of projects still underway throughout the State and an increase in non-mining projects of 12%. These figures suggest some diversification in our economy. Strong growth is expected in gas, agribusiness, education and tourism.

Funding infrastructure

This growth in population, move to urbanisation and new economies will create unprecedented infrastructure challenges. The World Economic Forum has posed the question “are we positioning ourselves to be able to respond to and meet the needs of our own communities and the demands that will arise from this new wave of consumerism at a point in time where globally we are underspending on infrastructure by $1 trillion US dollars per annum?”

Infrastructure Australia found the value-add attributable to infrastructure services made up 13.3% of Gross Domestic Product in 2011. This is projected to double to $377 billion in 2031. They went on to say that more than 70% of the value-add was attributable to transport and well over half of that was from urban transport.

This raises the issue of how to provide and fund that infrastructure and prompts the consideration of new forms of financing and a common understanding and desire from customers around their willingness to pay for these services as licensed motor vehicles, road freight volumes and populations grow. The Government is already looking at alternative funding models and arrangements including how it engages with private financing organisations.

Accelerating technological change and innovation

Arup's recent Foresight Report on Future of Highways identified a number of “megatrends” including developments in Nano technology that could lead to self-healing materials. This could completely change the nature of maintenance and infrastructure life and affect our long term asset planning needs and investment. Other futurists are forecasting events like one trillion objects being connected to the internet by 2025, the business value of mobile internet growing from US$4 trillion to US$11 trillion and the number of cars connected to the internet growing sixfold from $23 million to $152 million in 2020.

We must continue to consider and determine the right policy and infrastructure to meet the needs of this type of future. We also need to be clear on what these forecasts mean for us as a road agency and a service provider in terms of our systems, our services, our suppliers, our portfolio partners and our customers.

Keeping WA Moving

Keeping WA Moving is our strategic direction which will drive us beyond the next five years and prepare us for a fast changing world. It sets the direction that will take us from our current state, to achieving a future state that is 10, 20 or even 30 years away, and recognises that we need to prepare for that future now.

It helps us to achieve our aspiration to provide world class outcomes for the customer through a safe, reliable and sustainable road-based transport system through four strategic areas. These areas of focus recognise the role that our Portfolio partners have to play and our part in supporting the achievement of an efficient, safe, integrated transport solution for Western Australia.

For more information about our strategic direction please visit our website.