A region’s transport infrastructure is an essential facilitator and enhancer of economic growth and competitiveness by improving access to high value employment and service opportunities available within principal places of work and activity, and knowledge centres.
Quality transport infrastructure allows residents to easily move around the region to engage in activities and access services and employment. Similarly, transport infrastructure is a key to the liveability of a region, with evidence suggesting transport accessibility has a positive impact on the attractiveness of an area to households.
South East Queensland is projected to experience significant population growth over the next 25 years, with Queensland Government projections showing the region could grow by an additional 1.9 million people (from 3.4 million in 2016 to 5.3 million in 2041).
The ability to cater for this growing population in an efficient manner will be critical to supporting the ongoing liveability and competitiveness of the region. In particular, the ability to bring people closer to places of employment through appropriate land use planning, as well as connecting people and jobs through improvements in the existing transport system will drive the successful growth of South East Queensland.
The Queensland Government has a vision for South East Queensland to manage this growth, delivering housing supply and affordable living options, supporting the planning and delivery of critical infrastructure, while protecting the natural environment and lifestyle of the region.
The South East Queensland Regional Plan, Shaping SEQ, provides a framework for responding to the anticipated growth of the region to encourage better land use and clustering of activity in regional activity centres.
ShapingSEQ identifies several goals to be delivered over the next 25 years including:
- Supporting the emergence of higher residential densities around regional centres that are close to public transport nodes, stations and services as patterns of residential demand change over time. This focuses on building new communities and providing housing diversity to encourage affordable living.
- The vision details that South East Queensland’s centre will be a major metropolitan area centred on Brisbane, and the adjoining Logan, Moreton Bay and Redland municipalities. Major cities will be located on the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, and inland at Ipswich. Toowoomba will connect the south-east with the west.
- Actions that improve economic outcomes for South East Queensland, by supporting jobs growth and continued investment in regional economic clusters (RECs). ShapingSEQ aims to satisfy these objectives by facilitating connections between where people live and key employment centres. These major economic areas including the capital city centre and RECs will be connected and supported so people can choose to work in attractive employment precincts throughout the region.
- Across South East Queensland, a number of consolidated precincts already exist. There is evidence across the region that inter-dependent industries and businesses co-locate driven by a desire to reduce input costs associated with transport, maximise access to pools of labour and the recognition of the ease of business and innovation benefits that come from proximity. ShapingSEQ defines these regions as RECs, which are “…geographic concentrations of interconnected businesses, suppliers and associated institutions that result in greater economic activity and are significant economic drivers”.
- Developing an adequate and efficient way of movement, with key implementation strategies extending to integrating transport infrastructure, and prioritising key developments to negate future capacity restraints.
ShapingSEQ acknowledges that when industries and businesses co-locate and are well-connected, they increase their productivity and capacity to compete nationally and globally.
The South East Queensland Economic Foundations Paper (Economic Foundations Paper), developed by the Queensland Government to support the development of the SEQ City Deal, has defined key economic corridors and RECs.
| Economic Corridor | East-West Corridor | Capital City Knowledge Corridor | South Corridor | South-West Corridor | North Corridor |
| Regional Economic Cluster | Australian Trade Coast South west industrial corridor Ipswich Western Gateway | Capital City | Pacific Motorway Meadowbrook-Loganholme Yatala Stapylton-Beenleigh Southport-Broadbeach Robina Varsity Lakes Southern Gateway | Bromelton SDA | Strathpine-Brendale-Petrie North Lakes-Mango Hill Kawana Northern Gateway |
Source: Economic Foundations Paper
The Economic Foundations Paper highlights that to drive international competitiveness of the South East Queensland, the growth of traded industry sectors where the region has a comparative advantage should be facilitated, including advanced manufacturing, agribusiness, traded health and education, transport and communications, and tourism and creative industries.
These industries have been strong drivers of employment activity across South East Queensland, as demonstrated below, and will continue to be a focus for further strengthening the competitiveness of the region.
Employment by industry, SEQ and Queensland (2016)
Source: ABS
South East Queensland’s urbanised economy has resulted in the densification of employment opportunities within the Brisbane CBD, this is underpinned by the choices of people seeking the combined benefits associated with the densification of economic activity.
Queensland Government regional employment projections suggest that this pattern of employment growth will continue, as employers seek productivity gains by choosing to locate in key activity centres such as the Brisbane CBD and identified RECs.
Around one-half of all South East Queensland’s total projected employment growth to 2041 is anticipated to take place within the Brisbane LGA. However, it is only expected to account for around one-fifth of the south-east’s total population growth.
Employment and population growth projections, by LGA – SEQ (2016 2041)
Source: QGSO (2016)
The dispersed nature of projected population growth across South East Queensland, combined with increased densification of employment within the Brisbane area is expected to present challenges into the future as to how to provide access to adequate employment opportunities for this increasingly dispersed population. These projections indicate that a growing share of the population will need to commute to Brisbane to access employment opportunities.
It is anticipated that by 2041, over half a million people will need to commute from outside the Brisbane LGA to access employment opportunities, more than doubling the number of people commuting to the Brisbane LGA in 2015-16.
Number of people commuting daily to the Brisbane LGA to access employment, 2041 (projections)
Source: QGSO Regional Employment projections
Therefore, robust integrated land use and transport planning will be critical to facilitating this growth in an efficient manner and ensuring the ongoing productivity of South East Queensland. It is widely accepted that transport costs (including travel time and reliability) influence an individual’s work preferences, where they reside and how far they are willing to commute.
A lack of accessible public transport connectivity between residents and jobs may limit the growth in identified urban growth and infill areas across the region and ultimately liveability and economic productivity of South East Queensland.
Catering for this growth requires improved efficiency in terms of land and infrastructure use and is key to maintain the region’s attractiveness as a place in which to live, work and invest. Achieving land use and transport efficiency is explicitly linked and essential to supporting sustainable economic and population growth and ShapingSEQ’ s desired outcomes.
Transport corridors are the critical link that bring key areas of economic activity closer together, as well as efficiently linking productive precincts and clusters with key trade gateways.
Transport and economic growth
The Economic Foundations Paper highlights the importance of better linking key economic clusters and growth fronts, as it is critical to ensuring that the businesses driving South East Queensland’s economic growth have access to the sufficient pools of labour to support this growth.
Similarly, it is critical to ensuring that residents across the region can readily access a broad range of employment opportunities within an acceptable travel time.
There are a number of mechanisms through which transport can facilitate economic growth of a region, including:
- Enabling economic interactions between firms, and between firms and consumers.
Firms can reach wider markets, enabling them to expand, gain scale economies and develop specialist skills; markets are more competitive as the natural barrier of distance is reduced and inefficiencies associated with monopolies are eroded.
- Enabling cities to specialise, developing sector specific advantages. If better transport enables ancillary activities to be outsourced to another city, it reduces costs and creates space for the high-value activities to further concentrate in the central cluster.
- Getting workers into concentrated and productive centres of activity.
The Economic Foundations Paper identified RECs within South East Queensland that contain priority industry clusters including advanced manufacturing, agribusiness, traded health and education, transport and communications, and tourism and cultural.
The number of trips taken daily to these RECs, and the proportion undertaken by private vehicle, is shown below. Evidently, there are a significant number of trips made daily by individuals travelling to these locations, and an unsustainable portion made by private vehicle.
In order to facilitate the growth and maintain competitiveness of these priority clusters, maintaining efficient links between an individual’s place of residence and employment is required.
Number of daily commute trips to priority REC’s (2016)
Source: ABS 2016 Census
While upgrades to the existing road network can work to alleviate congestion resulting from increased road network demand in the short-term. It is clear that a continued level of reliance on upgrading the road network alone will not be sustainable into the future given the growth patterns identified above, and increasingly constrained space available within key transport corridors.
Research also indicates that in many cases, the impacts of roadway expansions can often lead to induced demand, where generated traffic can often fill a significant portion of the additional capacity provided by a roadway expansion.
This can further entrench South East Queensland’s reliance on private vehicles, increasing the degree of car dependency and reducing public transport patronage. This can also drive undesirable patterns of land-use development, resulting in more dispersed, car-oriented development on the urban fringe, rather than promoting higher density, multi-model urban redevelopment typically associated with public transport improvements.
High-quality public transport infrastructure connecting population to employment centres is critical to sustainably meeting growth challenges. Access to high-quality public transport can support higher density development of greenfield areas and promote urban consolidation.
Greenfield development areas along the key economic corridors provides an opportunity to deliver an urban form integrated with public transport services to maximise their attractiveness. For infill development, it could provide the incentive to accelerate new development and support the achievement of improved land use and transport outcomes.
Similarly, poor public transport accessibility and increasing congestion can reduce the attractiveness of the region as a place for people to live. Evidence suggests that accessibility to public transport has a positive impact on the attractiveness of an area to households, with traffic congestion having the opposite impact.
The problem of car reliance and increasing congestion means unpredictable and lengthy travel times. This results in less time for work and leisure activities. In South East Queensland, the existing transport system is defining the identity and regional growth narrative by dictating the jobs people can access, their income and where they choose to live.
A high frequency and efficient mass transport solution has the potential to unlock potential regional economic benefits by allowing firms to co-locate, people to access the jobs of tomorrow and free up the region’s road networks to allow goods to move unconstrained.
