A feature of recent years has been an increasing demand for publicly provided infrastructure, coinciding with the shrinking ability of Government to fund improvements.

The result for many road authorities and local governments has been infrastructure programs that are unable to match the combination of growth and existing asset consumption. In response many agencies have resorted to conditional development consents with impact fees for infrastructure.

Since 1989, staff of Veitch Lister Consulting have been working closely with state and local governments in NSW and Queensland to develop an approach to road development contributions that is both logical and practical. Our approach involves identifying where spare capacity exists or is required in the road system and then assessing where a new development will use this capacity and what extra public investment is needed.

Benefits of the VLC approach are that it:

• reflects the true relationship between development, road usage and the impacts on road capacity,
• can result in more efficient land use-transport development and efficient resources usage,
• highlights cross subsidy issues, and
• differentiates between equal pricing and true equity.