These are the twin themes of a conference being organised by the Australian Road Federation and the International Road Federation later this year.The 2002 Asia Pacific Roads Conference, to be staged in Sydney from 1-5 September, will be about managing roads as a business, and will go to the heart of the debate on how to service traffic diversity in a safer and more efficient way.
The emphasis will be on strategy, planning, managing and funding – with a new focus on the needs of the customer, the road user. Focusing on customers is the way to go, the way of the future, the organisers believe. This view represents a sharp contrast to the past, where the construction and maintenance of roads and the way they have been used has been driven largely from the regulatory end, by government.
Ray Fisher, chairman of the organising committee of this 2002 Asia Pacific Roads Conference, says the conference theme is not about technical details, but more broadly about a vision for the positioning of roads in the new millennium.
“The emphasis will be on planning, strategic thinking, and capacity for innovation,” he said. “It’s time now to start stretching the imagination into the future.”
Dr Robin Dunlop, Chairman of Austroads, regards the conference as an important test for the future. For him, the two key questions are how do you manage roads, and how do you fund them. The debates about transport should be joined with other strategic questions that are challenging Australia. They include economic sustainability in general, and population levels, salinity and pollution.
In keeping with the strategic theme of the conference, the organisers are encouraging attendance from people who will lead road management into the future. The conference is aiming to achieve broad interaction between car manufacturers, motorist organisations, trucking and other transport operations, telecommunication providers, fleet management system providers as well as road authorities, policy makers and academics.
“This is the conference that you must attend if you want to understand the future of roads and want to be part of that future,” Ray Fisher said.
For further information telephone (02) 9262 2277, email roads@tourhosts.com.au or visit www.tourhosts.com.au/roads.
