IPPG designed and led a collaborative research project with industry and four state governments to explore community transport in Australia, assess the systemic challenges facing the sector, and identify the opportunities for innovation.
The challenge
Transport disadvantage essentially refers to difficulties in accessing and using transport, and can have serious impacts on economic participation, health and social inclusion, and also impose major downstream costs on society.
Community transport is an important part of the solution to addressing disadvantage mobility, especially for those with complex needs. However, the community transport sector, why it matters and challenges it faces are poorly understood.
IPPG were approached by industry body ITS Australia to partner with them and four state transport agencies to investigate community transport and identify the barriers and opportunities for innovation in the sector.
What we did
Our research aimed to provide a strategic policy perspective on community transport in Australia, analysing its critical role and importance for communities, the key systemic challenges facing both providers and their customers, and the relevant trends, barriers and opportunities for systemic and service-level innovation in the sector.
We designed an exploratory research approach involving extensive desktop literature and evidence reviews, to investigate the current customer and delivery landscape, policy and funding context, and current and emerging technology and innovation trends.
This was combined with interviews and workshops with key government, industry and community transport stakeholders, demographic modelling, data visualisation and additional qualitative analysis around technology, funding and systemic barriers.
Outcome
Our Community Transport of the Future research report was published in April 2022. The findings of the report were presented to and discussed with a variety of government, community transport and wider industry stakeholders through meetings, workshops, webinars and conferences throughout 2022. The research also led to a new stream of work at ITS Australia to bring government, community transport and transport technology stakeholders together to explore new opportunities.
