Urban Transport Crowding and Congestion, a supplementary report to the 2019 Australian Infrastructure Audit, provides a snapshot of urban congestion and crowding in 2016 and 2031, based on the population and transport networks of our six largest capital cities and their satellite cities and regions.
These interactive maps show projected changes to infrastructure access and networks between 2016 and 2031. Use the maps to explore data for the six modelled urban areas: Sydney, the Hunter and Illawarra; Melbourne and Geelong; Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast; Greater Perth; Greater Adelaide; and the ACT and Queanbeyan.
Each map features a slider, which you can drag left or right to directly compare how crowding, congestion or access differs between 2016 and 2031, or between cars and public transport.
The layer list, legends and display options are shown within the workbench.
- On desktop: Click 'show workbench' to activate it if it is minimised. Click the arrow next to 'search by location' to minimise it if it is activated.
- On mobile: Click the eye icon (with the number of layers next to it) at the top to activate and deactivate the workbench.
With the workbench open, click the square on the left of the layer name to activate and deactivate a layer.
To change how a layer appears, expand the menu by pressing the triangle at to the right of the layer name. Here the legend will be displayed. You can also adjust whether a layer appears on the left of the slider, right of the slider, or on both sides, and also control the layer transparency (opacity).
Click onto the map itself to view further information about a feature (a road, public transport link, or region). A pop-up will appear showing attributes associated with that feature.
If there is a long list of features that appear, try zooming in close to the road or public transport link of interest, and try again. Most links are bi-directional (travel in two directions), which means that two results often appear in the pop up. Click the arrow to the right of the result to expand details about each feature.
What the metrics mean:
- Volume / capacity ratio (VCR): For roads, this refers to the level of traffic congestion by comparing the number of vehicles to the capacity of the road. For public transport, this refers to the level of passenger crowding by comparing the number of passengers to the capacity of each train, bus, ferry or tram.
- Volume: This refers to the number of cars or passengers along a link in an hour.
- Speed: This refers to the average speed along a link.
Disclaimers:
- For network performance maps, roads or public transport links below relevant daily volume thresholds are not shown. This is why some sections will appear missing or broken, and some links are isolated.
- For access to jobs and services maps, only data for areas above a population density threshold (of 50 people per square kilometre) are shown.
Click below to view these maps, and more, on NationalMap, in a new window. NationalMap is an online map-based tool to view a vast collection of spatial data from government departments and agencies. In addition to all the maps presented in Urban Transport Crowding and Congestion, you also have access to a vast collection of other spatial data via its Data Catalogue.