By Adam Carey and Sophie Aubrey
The number of trucks clogging roads and polluting the city is predicted to triple by 2050, while a $183 million project to move goods to and from Melbourne’s port to its suburbs by rail is yet to shift a single shipping container.
The Port of Melbourne handled a national record of 3.4 million containers last year, an increase of 9.3 per cent in just 12 months, as Melbourne’s population growth continued to outpace that of other Australian cities.
Locomotives at the Port of Melbourne’s Swanson Dock.Credit: Port of Melbourne
The runaway rise in freight at Australia’s busiest container port was moved exclusively on trucks, as the proportion of containers moved on rail remained stuck at just below 6 per cent – and only to regional or interstate destinations, not metropolitan areas – the second-smallest share in the country.
The port’s 2050 strategy, published in 2020, forecast that the number of trucks visiting the port each weekday could rise from 11,000 to 34,000 by 2050, even with movement of some containers to rail.
An updated document, published last week, says larger trucks and off-peak pick-ups could offer an adequate medium-term solution until rail links become established.
There is frustration in the community and with the port’s operators, as ambitions to shift more freight onto trains continue to languish and plans for an urban freight rail network struggle to take off.
So far, the Commonwealth and state governments and the Port of Melbourne’s owners have collectively spent $183 million on the Port Rail Shuttle project, a network of freight rail lines and terminals between the port and Melbourne’s three major industrial precincts.
The project would see container trains shuttle between those locations and the port. The trains would be a uniform 600 metres long, carrying up to 84 six-metre-long shipping containers – a trip that would otherwise require about 42 trucks, slashing the number needing to travel on metropolitan roads.
But making it work relies on private operators pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into building terminals in Altona, Somerton and Dandenong South.
While that investment has been committed to, only the Altona terminal is complete, with construction of Somerton under way and work due to begin in Dandenong South by the end of 2025, according to the site’s owner, Salta Properties.
Mother-of-three Jessica Marsh worries about the effects of truck pollution from the traffic to and from the port.Credit: Simon Schluter
Residents of Melbourne’s inner west, who have long fought against trucks in their neighbourhoods, are frustrated by the lack of progress on rail.
Yarraville mother of three Jessica Marsh said the predicted increase in trucks was “terrifying” and she worried about the impacts of pollution on her family, particularly given the West Gate Tunnel – which is supposed to remove trucks from local streets – is being built without filtration on its vents.
“The community has been let down by a lack of protection from impacts of industrial activity,” Marsh said. “A lot more could be done for air quality and safety.”
The Port Rail Shuttle was conceived more than 20 years ago to support rail to absorb a 30 per cent share of container movements around the city – a significant promise for road users given 90 per cent of containers managed by the port stay within metropolitan Melbourne.
Rail Futures Institute president John Hearsch first worked on the project in 2005 and has continued to consult on it.
“With Melbourne being the busiest port in Australia for container traffic and ... one of the most congested from a truck point of view, it was an obvious thing [to do],” Hearsch said.
The concept remains as compelling today as when it was first conceived but will struggle to materialise until the government provides industry with incentives to shift operations from road to rail, he argues.
“Its major flaw ... is that this can’t really happen without some financial support, at least for the early years until the business builds up to the stage where it’s self-sustainable.”
The Port of Melbourne invested $125 million in its rail terminal on Swanson Dock to “see more containers moved by rail more efficiently, bypassing roads in inner Melbourne”.
The port’s chief executive, Saul Cannon, said it was disappointing that trains still shifted such a small proportion of freight in Victoria, and none around Melbourne.
Cannon said freight rail was “still in start-up mode”.
“Short-haul rail, if you look globally, is hard to make work and it’s about scale,” he said. “But we need the terminals developed and operational so that that opportunity is really there.”
Saul Cannon, chief executive of the Port of Melbourne.Credit: Arsineh Houspian
Victorian Transport Association chief executive Peter Anderson, who represents the state’s heavy vehicle industries, said freight operators would only move to rail once it made financial sense.
“The trick for rail services to work is to find a connection [between trucks and trains] that is sharp and efficient. If it’s not efficient, then people will just use road,” Anderson said. “People just go ‘Bugger it, I’ll just go with trucks.’ It’s easier, door-to-door.”
According to the latest published data, rail carries just 5.8 per cent of the containers through the Port of Melbourne. Only Brisbane has a lower proportion among Australia’s five capital city ports, at just 1.5 per cent.
Martin Wurt, president of the Maribyrnong Truck Action Group, said 25 years after residents were first promised more containers would be moved by rail, locals were still waiting.
“If you look at the scale of how fast the port is growing versus the plans the government has for rail, they’re not keeping pace whatsoever,” he said.
The rise in the number of trucks around the port is in part due to the growth of Webb Dock, the only container terminal at the Port of Melbourne with no rail access. Webb Dock is projected to account for 50 per cent of container traffic at the port by 2050.
“The elephant in the room is Webb Dock,” says Neil Chambers, who heads the Container Transport Alliance Australia.
A future rail link would follow a disused track through residential and light industrial areas at Fishermans Bend.
“It’s going to cost a truckload to put rail back in. We are talking billions. And what will it be? A low bridge next to the Bolte Bridge?” Chambers said.
The Port of Melbourne last week published its latest draft 30-year port development strategy, which is produced every five years. Its 2050 strategy, released in 2020, said a rail link to Webb Dock would be needed by 2030, but the new road map cools on this idea.
Further plans to support rail fell over last year when the Allan government shelved a major interstate freight terminal in Truganina, in Melbourne’s west. Instead, the federal government’s terminal in Beveridge, in the outer north, has been prioritised.
Victoria’s auditor-general investigated state schemes to get more freight onto trains and found they were barely making a dent in the dominance of trucks.
The watchdog’s 2023 report said the increase in trucks had several negative impacts, including making roads less safe and more congested, increasing road maintenance costs, worsening amenity due to truck noise, and rising vehicle emissions.
A Victorian government spokeswoman said the government had invested $368 million in freight rail maintenance since 2020 to get more freight onto trains and off trucks.
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