The federal government has issued its call for the development of business cases that will create faster rail services on urban and regional lines across the country.
Yesterday’s launch of the Faster Rail Prospectus follows up the government’s allocation of $20 million in the 2017-18 budget for investigation into various project options for faster rail travel.
“For the many commuters in regional and outer urban areas, faster rail has the potential to have a significant impact on their quality of life by allowing them to spend more time at home, and less time travelling,” federal transport and infrastructure minister Darren Chester said.
“This initiative will explore improvements to the rail connections between our cities and surrounding regional areas through $20 million in funding to support the development of business cases.”
Regional rail services are often still using tracks constructed in the nineteenth century, and run at speeds and frequencies below what contemporary conventional rail systems can achieve.
According to the prospectus, “If existing rail lines can be upgraded, speeds of up to 100 to 160 km/h are potentially achievable depending on the location and the extent of the upgrade”.
The document indicates that desirable business cases would be those that demonstrate faster rail travel times through either new or upgraded rail infrastructure.
It also emphasises the need for higher-speed and higher-capacity rail connections that can meet the expected job increases in CBDs and other “employment clusters”, as well link-up populations in outer suburbs and regional centres with these areas of job-growth.
“Business cases must outline initiatives that will increase housing choices by opening up regional areas, encourage job and career opportunities, and improve access to specialist services for people in regional areas, as well as major events,” federal minister for urban infrastructure Paul Fletcher said.
Some example project proposals suggested by the prospectus include the creation of new lines that connect with an existing rail network; the extension of existing lines to urban growth corridors in outer-suburbs and regional cities; the improvement or creation of rail access to “greenfield” residential areas; the improvement of bridges, tunnels, or steep gradients which currently slow-down train services; the replacement of stretches of winding or steep track to improve train speeds between stops; track duplication and track electrification; and the installation of new signalling and train control technology.
“Proposals are open for application to both state governments and the private sector, including consortia arrangements, with submissions for high-level Stage 1 proposals closing on 13 October 2017,” Fletcher said.
“Ultimately, the best three proposals will receive Australian Government co-funding towards business case development, with the final business cases then progressing to Infrastructure Australia for assessment.”
It will be most interesting to see what the NSW government puts up. They are some way behind the Victorian government.
Sydney could have faster trains if they just cut out the huge amount of slack they built into the timetables in 2005.
How cheap is that?