Commuters from Melbourne’s outer suburbs are spending 3.2 days a year in traffic
Travelling to the city from Melbourne’s outer suburbs is becoming more chaotic, with peak hour delays worsening and crashes causing mayhem across the network.
Victoria
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Commuters travelling from Melbourne’s outer suburbs to the CBD are spending 3.2 days of their year sitting in traffic, with new data showing a rise peak hour delays.
Analysis of new travel data collected from Uber and Infrastructure Partnerships Australia (IPA) between 2015 until the end 2019 shows gridlock during rush hour has increased by 12 per cent across the city.
It also found traffic reliability had plummeted as accidents and disruptions created bigger headaches for more drivers on the network.
But in welcome news, off-peak trips improved by 9 per cent over the same period.
IPA chief executive Adrian Dwyer said the off-peak figure was proof Victoria’s pipeline of transport projects was starting to take effect.
He said the challenge was to keep investment up and encourage commuters to spread their trips outside of rush hour to maximise these benefits.
“This shows that the big chunky points of infrastructure do make a difference," he said.
“Often we see these things delivered and forget how bad it was before.
“But building is only part of the solution. There is lots more that can be done with data and changing travel patterns to complement that work.”
“The off-peak data shows that there is spare capacity we can make use of we adapt the work we work.”
Uber Australia and New Zealand general manager Dom Taylor said the company hoped to work with cities to reduce congestion.
“At Uber, we see our main competitor as private car ownership,” he said.
“For our cities to move well in the future, Australians need to reduce our over-reliance on private vehicles – with more people opting for shared transport.”
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