By Denis Bright

Australian travel needs its own Rome to Rio Site to identify affordable travel options in every direction. The Australian inventors of this site sold it to Omio Travel in Germany over a decade ago. As a travel site with embedded AI technology, its outreach extends to the remotest locations here and overseas.

Evolving technology calls associated booking links for accommodation, tours and other events in association with existing commercial sites. Some administrative costs of an Aussie Travel Site could also be offset by the collection of cookies for marketing research from search patterns of users. Web designers could recommend whether The Aussie Travel Site is best administered in the government or private sector. It would simply supplement existing locally based state based digital travel planning searches for quite routine destination searches.

Commitment to public transport as an environmental goal is making a comeback but there has been a lag in the containment of carbon emissions for the transport of both passengers and freight. Despite the more widespread use of electric cars, carbon emissions from motorized transport including road freight will not peak until 2025 at 26 per cent of all Australian emissions before declining steeply. Carbon offsets from controls on clearing and reafforestation (LULUCF) will make a valuable contribution to longer-term carbon emission reductions.

Australian Carbon Emission Projections

State governments are responding pragmatically to the challenges posed by both land use planning initiatives and commitment to public transport. The biggest lag is still in the hegemony of motorized general freight. There have been recent developments in the provision of affordable public transport in some states.

The Queensland government is giving fifty cents fares a trial across the Translink networks throughout Queensland from August 2024. Fares will also be halved on the privately owned train link to Brisbane Airport. Tasmania will also reduce public transport bus fares by half from 1 June 2024.

An electrified line has been promised for Queensland’s Sunshine Coast in preparation for the 2032 Olympics. Light rail projects are being delivered on the Gold Coast. Brisbane will soon have Cross-River Rail with supporting networks of Brisbane Metro Bus Lanes.

Victoria’s Myki card can offer affordable outings near Melbourne.

The Geelong Council has supported this commitment to improved public transport access to near metropolitan sites. Geelong is accessible on Myki cards.

Closer to Geelong itself, the Bellarine Rail Trail offers a 35-kilometre ride to Queenscliff with access to other rail trails and nearby coastal resorts.

There are also options like the Cross-Port Phillip Bay ferries to Sorrento or Mornington.

The generosity of capped fares in Victoria is more difficult to repeat in states like Queensland where even the coastal route to Cairns from Brisbane covers over 1,650-kilometres. Still, Tilt Train services operate five times a week on this route in each direction. There are an additional five services a week on the Rockhampton to Brisbane corridor where an electrified tilt train completes the 700-kilometre journey in eight hours.

Long distance travel can be tedious. A coastal travel pass costing an affordable $209 offers a leisurely journey along the coastal route to Cairns over a month. Extending this pass to regional outback trains would be a logical extension for multiple-direction travel at an additional cost with offsets for concessional fares. The momentum of these transport initiatives must continue to keep up with new demands and the requirements of affordable tourism.

Iconic Queensland regional train services like The Inlander or Westlander need replacement by higher speed rail cars with catering facilities as provided by TransWA. This TransWA regional service operates on a narrow-gauge line to serve the Goldfields Region. It was Australia’s fastest regional train before the commissioning of the Rockhampton Tilt Train in the 1990s.

Rolling stock released by these upgrades could be refurbished to provide extra capacity on the popular Spirit of the Outback Train and a once-a-week Motorail Service to North Queensland. These services were terminated by the state LNP during its single term in office between 2012-15.

Aussie Travel would not need to be locked into a particular style of corporate fare and booking management as selected by the NZ Government in its commitment to national ticketing through Cubic Transportation in 2022. Reporter Phil Pennington of Radio NZ warned listeners about the involvement of a company with lists to the US military through Cubic Defense in NZ’s national ticketing system on privacy grounds (26 October 2022). In Australia, Cubic has deep involvement in the electronic components of urban ticketing systems and has a long record of tax minimization through its multinational financial links as noted by ABC News in its annual review of tax avoidance (8 November 2023).

Aussie Travel could be open to all booking services which pay registration fees. Its interactive technology could be available for export after appropriate costings, technological assessment and trials in Australia. The embedded AI technology from The Rome to Rio Site can still work for the benefit of users in far-off Australia. AI resourcefulness can scan timetables in obscure locations like this bus service from Longreach or Winton to Cloncurry.

A prospective traveller might want these details before booking outback safaris to deserted mining sites in the rugged terrain in North West Queensland or the Boodjamulla National Park (Lawn Hill). Visiting the scenic delights of the Cairns Region would require an additional subsidized bus during the tourist season from Mt. Isa and Cloncurry to Normanton to connect with existing bus services to the Coral Sea Coast.

Regional political parties like Katter’s Australia Party (KAP) do raise the hopes of voters in disadvantaged electorates in the bush. KAP controls three state seats in North Queensland (NQ). The KAP could decide the outcome of results through preference allocations in several marginal NQ seats held by Labor near Cairns and Townsville. Hopefully, KAP will leave its preference allocations open as the 2024 election approaches by continuing to issue two-sided how to vote cards.

Revitalising public transport for regional areas should indeed be an item at the national infrastructure and transport minsters forum scheduled for late 2024. If only our transport planners could be half as nimble as intrepid travellers who choose public transport for domestic travel, the tyranny of distance in Australian travel might be addressed more productively to assist in breaking down the relative isolation of regional areas from the urbanized Australians.

Progress made in public transport initiatives in Queensland and other states would be devastated by the return of cost-cutting measures if supporters of minor far-right parties reflexively allocate preferences again to return a state LNP government as in 2012.