Advertisement
I had previously given in-principle support to building an inland rail freight line linking Melbourne and Brisbane:
Rail is particularly well suited to two types of freight:
- Bulk Freight: rail is suited to the provision of high volume bulk freight services to export facilities because it generally requires well defined point-to-point transport only (such as directly from silo/mine to port) with no requirement for trucking at any intermediate points. Rail can also transport larger volumes in shorter periods to meet shipping requirements and minimise on-port storage.
- Long-haul General (Containerised) Freight: Road has inherent competitive advantages in the transportation of short-haul general freight because of its ability to offer a flexible door to door service without modal transfer (i.e. transfer to/from rail) and its capacity to handle small shipment sizes. However, rail tends to be more price competitive over longer distances where pick-up-and-delivery costs are reduced in unit cost per kilometre terms.
The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers
Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe
About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.