RP Data Research Blog
- Is public transport infrastructure into the city as important as we once
thought?
|
 |
|
Posted: 31 Oct 2013 02:38 PM PDT
 For those of us
that live and work in the inner city areas of our capital cities, we think
that public transport infrastructure is a must across the city. The
reason being that it is essential for those of us in suburbia to be able to
travel to and from the city in an efficient and timely manner,
notwithstanding the fact that so many of us still drive. But in this
week’s blog I question whether or not public transport is actually that
important.
According to data from the end of
June 2013 from the Property Council of Australia, the total floor space
across the CBD office markets is 17,263,536 sqm. If we were to assume
that the typical office has a workspace ratio of say 20 sqm for every one
worker, this would mean that if these offices were fully occupied they would
house 863,177 workers. If we include the nearby fringe areas, which I
have defined as: Brisbane Fringe, North Sydney, St Kilda Road, Southbank,
West Perth, Crows Nest/St Leonards, Adelaide Fringe and East Melbourne, there
is an additional, 4,396,603 sqm of office space. Again assuming a 1:20
ratio these offices if fully occupied would house 219,830 workers.
Between the CBD and fringe office space, if we assume one worker for every
20sqm of floor area, there is enough space for 1,083,007 office workers
nationally.
At the moment, office vacancy
rates are quite high across the country, sitting at 10.1% across the CBDs and
10.2% across these fringe office markets. Based on these figures and
our ratio assumptions there are 775,945 workers within our CBD markets and
197,484 workers within the fringe areas.
Of course not everybody that works
in the CBD or fringe areas works in offices there will be a mixture of
retail, services, industry etc that also offer employment in these areas
which would also increase the overall working population in these areas.
If we look at the labour force
data from June 2013 we see that at a national level, there were 8,138,418
persons employed full-time and 3,519,841 persons employed part-time for a
total of 11,658,258. Of course the nature of part-time employment is
such that jobs are at times shared so given this I will assume that half of
the part-time positions are travelled to each day (reflective of job sharing)
resulting in my total employment figure of 9,898,338 persons.
Based on this 9,898,338 persons
figure and the current occupied CBD and fringe office space, these inner city
area offices are providing employment for just 9.8% of the nation’s
workforce. Now of course most of those people that live outside of the
respective capital cities are not going to travel to the closest CBD for
employment (yes there are some exceptions) so it is beneficial to analyse the
proportion of the capital city workforce that travels to the inner city area
for employment.
Demographic data to June 2012
showed that 15,015,290 persons lived within a capital city which equated to
66.1% of the nation’s population. Now we know that unemployment tends
to be slightly higher outside of capital cities however, if we assume
simplistically that 66.1% of the 9,898,338 persons are employed within a
capital city that provides a capital city employment figure of 6,542,801
persons. Based on this figure, 14.9% of all capital city jobs are
situated in a CBD or fringe office markets. As I mentioned, there are
other forms of employment in these area other than just that within an
office. Given this, let’s assume that a further 5% of the total capital
city employment is located within either the CBD or the fringe areas taking
the figure to 20%, leaving 4 out of every 5 employed persons not being
employed in the inner city area and therefore not having to travel centrally
each day.
Of course there are those that
need to travel centrally that aren’t workers that would rely on public
transport, this includes: students, shoppers, tourists and those who require
Government services that are located within these areas. We would
estimate that overall, this proportion of population is quite small.
Outside of this, although users of public transport may not necessarily be
travelling all the way into the inner city areas of the capital cities, they
do utilise it to travel to other working and retail nodes along the transport
system. Despite this, a majority of the population is unlikely to be
relying on public transport to reach their destination each day with even
fewer using it to tavel to the inner city areas for employment.
The implications of this is quite
significant, although the roads and public transport are undoubtedly
congested, a large proportion of the population are simply not commuting
centrally on a day-to-day basis. It also means that public transport is
only benefitting a small proportion of the overall community.
From a future development
perspective this also has some repercussions. It is clear that in our
larger capital cities there is a significant focus on densification of the
inner city areas and those along transport spines. Although this is the
case, demand for these higher density inner city properties is likely to be
strongest amongst those who actually work centrally. In fact, it is
probably fair to say that for those who do not work centrally that higher
density housing in the inner city areas would likely be highly undesirable.
The push for higher density in the
inner city means that you can squeeze more residents into a smaller
area. From Government’s perspective it also means that you can rely on
existing infrastructure which tends to be most abundant in inner city areas
rather than having to provide new infrastructure such as that which is
required when development takes place on the outskirts of the city.
Nevertheless, it certainly appears
that public transport infrastructure such as rail lines and busways
connecting suburbia to the inner city areas only benefits a small overall proportion
of the population. Of course, of the estimated 20% of people that
travel to central areas of the capital city, you only have to look at the
roads of a morning to see that for many the preferred way to commute
continues to be via the private car.
The other aspects of public
transport to consider are the cost and the coverage. The overall cost
of public transport is expensive and acts as a deterrent for many to use on a
more regular basis. I live in Brisbane and to travel just one zone
costs $4.80 if you don’t have a go card. The trip to the city from my
house is only two zones which is $5.60 by paper ticket and $3.95 if I use a
go card . I live relatively close to the city centre however, if I
lived four zones away and purchased a paper ticket the cost is $7.50, if you
have a go card the cost reduces to $5.13.
In my opinion, those costs are
extremely excessive. Yes it is probably slightly cheaper than the cost
of running and maintaining a car on a week-to-week basis however, the
differential is likely to be minimal.
My overall conclusion is that
public transport is not as important as many of us believe it to be,
particularly for those of us that believe we all need to have public
transport to commute to work in the inner city. This analysis shows
that the majority of the working population actually don’t work in the
central areas which tend to be the areas best serviced by public transport.
The main reasons that public
transport it is not as important are due to: public transport being over-priced,
services are generally irregular and unreliable and the services do not
effectively cater to the overall needs of the wider community with the main
focus of the service to transport people from the suburbs to the central
areas of the city. If the system was expanded, run on a more regular
basis and made more affordable, I am sure that it would be more widely used,
especially if it was more cost effective and efficient than using a private
vehicle. Sadly, at this stage it is generally a long way from
delivering these benefits.
据澳大利亚房地产理事会从2013年6月底的数据显示，整个CBD写字楼市场的总建筑面积为17263536平方米。如果我们假设，典型的办公室有一个工作区的比例为每一名工人说， 20平方米，这将意味着，如果这些办事处被完全占领，他们将容纳863177名工人。如果我们包括附近的边缘地区，这是我定义为：西南岸，圣基尔达路，北悉尼，布里斯班穗，珀斯，鸦巢/圣伦纳德斯，阿德莱德艺穗东墨尔本，还有一个额外的4396603平方米的办公室空间。同样假设一个1:20的比例如果完全占领这些办事处将容纳219,830名工人。生物多样性公约“及附带的办公空间之间，如果我们假设一个工人，每20平方米面积，有足够的空间供全国1083007上班族。 此刻，写字楼的空置率是相当高的，在全国范围内，坐在整个中央商务区的10.1％和10.2％，在这些边缘的写字楼市场。基于这些数字和我们的比假设有775945名工人在我们的CBD市场和边缘地区内的197484名工人。 当然不是每个人都在办公室工作，工作在CBD或边缘地区会有混合物，零售，服务等行业，在这些领域，在这些领域也将增加整体劳动人口提供就业。 如果我们看一下从2013年6月劳动力数据，我们看到，在国家一级，有8138418人全职雇用3519841人11658258共聘用兼职。当然兼职工作的性质就是这样，工作共享，所以有时我会假设有一半的兼职岗位每天（反映工作分担）在我的总就业人数为9898338人。 基于这9898338人的身材和目前占领的“生物多样性公约”及附带的办公空间，这些内城地区办事处提供就业机会的国家的劳动力只有9.8％ 。当然现在住在各自的省会城市之外的那些人大部分都不会前往最接近CBD就业（有一些例外） ，所以它是有利于前往省会城市劳动力的比例分析内城区就业。人口统计数据显示， 2012年6月15015290人生活在一个省会城市，等同于全国人口的66.1 ％ 。现在我们知道，失业往往要稍高以外的省会城市，但是，如果我们简单地假设在一个省会城市，提供一个省会城市就业人数为6542801人9898338人，有66.1％的就业。基于这个数字，坐落在CBD或边缘的写字楼市场的14.9 ％，所有的省会城市工作。正如我所提到的，还有其他形式的就业，在这些地区以外的只是一个办公室内。鉴于此，我们的假设，一个进一步的5 ％的总资本城市就业是位于无论是在CBD或采取的数字为20％ ，离开4列每5受雇于人不被聘用内的城市区域和边缘区域内因此不必集中出行的每一天。 当然还有那些需要集中出行，工人将依靠公共交通，这包括：学生，购物者，游客和那些谁需要都位于这些区域内的政府服务。我们估计，总体而言，这种人口的比例是相当小的。此之外，虽然公共交通的使用者可能不一定一路旅行到省会城市的内陆城市，他们利用它前往其他工作和零售沿交通系统的节点。尽管这样，大部分的人口是不太可能依靠公共交通到达目的地的每一天，甚至更少，用它来TAVEL内城地区就业。 这是相当显着的影响，虽然道路和公共交通无疑拥挤，很大比例的人口根本就没有上班一天到一天的基础上集中。这也意味着，公共交通仅受益的一小部分的整体社会。 从未来发展的角度来看，这也有一定的反响。很显然，在我们较大的省会城市，是一个显着的重点致密的内城地区和沿交通刺。虽然是这样的话，这些高密度的内城物业的需求可能是最强的究竟是谁的工作集中在那些。事实上，它可能是公平的说，对于那些谁不集中，密度较高的内城区域的房屋很可能是极不可取的。 在市内意味着更高密度的推到一个较小的区域，你可以挤出更多的居民。从政府的角度来看，这也意味着你可以依靠现有的基础设施，这往往是最丰富的，而不是提供新的发展时，需要发生在城市郊区的基础设施，如内城地区。 不过，它肯定会出现，公共交通基础设施，如铁路线和公交车道，连接郊区的内城区域只惠及一小整体的人口比例。当然，估计有20％的人前往中部地区省会城市中，你只能看一个上午的道路看到，对于许多通勤的首选方法仍然是通过私家车。 其他公共交通方面，要考虑的是成本和覆盖范围。公共交通的整体成本是昂贵的，作为一种威慑许多使用上更定期。我住在布里斯班和旅游只是一个区域成本$ 4.80 ，如果你没有去卡。从我家的城市之旅只有两个区域，这是纸票5.60元和3.95美元如果我使用一个去卡。我住的比较靠近市中心，如果我住在四区以外，并购买纸质机票的成本是$ 7.50 ，如果你有一展身手的成本降低至5.13美元的卡。 在我看来，这些费用是极其过度。是的，它是运行和维护然而，一周周的基础上一辆汽车的成本比可能稍微便宜一些，差是可能是最小的。 我的总体结论是，公共交通不是很重要，因为我们很多人认为它是，特别是对于我们这些相信大家都需要有在市内公共交通工具上下班。这一分析表明，广大的劳动人口实际上不工作，在中部地区，这往往是最好的公共交通服务领域。 公共交通并不重要，重要的主要原因是由于公共交通价格过高，服务一般都是不规则的，不可靠的，服务不服务的重点，有效地满足广大市民的整体需求运输人从郊区到城市的中部地区。如果系统被扩大，更经常的基础上运行，而变得更加实惠，我相信，这将是更广泛的应用，尤其是如果它是更具成本效益和效率比使用私家车。可悲的是，在这个阶段它通常是一个很长的路要走，从提供这些好处。http://www.ljgrealestate.com.au  |
.jpg)
