The demography of employment: the commute

The irony is that governments are under almost relentless pressure to spend more taxpayer dollars on improvements to public transport for the benefit of a higher income minority, and also to keep fares low (and hence maintain or even increase the level of subsidies). The level of policy support for taxpayer funded improvements to metropolitan road networks hasn't been as generous, with extensions and improvements to metropolitan road systems largely approved on the basis of PPPs where investors believe they can mount a business case (with mixed results). This is despite the reality that the majority of employment is in suburban locations and that arguably private transport users already pay more in taxes than the road network receives in spending.

Australia is not unique in this regard. Many western economies adopt similar subsidy arrangements. (Many eastern economies have such vastly different levels of population and population density that comparisons aren't really meaningful). But what is missing in Australia seems to be an awareness of how this subsidy plays out. Public transport users with high paying jobs in inner cities are often the first to complain about incremental increases in fare costs. Private car users with lower paying jobs in suburban locations where public transport is simply not an option, are asked to shoulder rising fuel prices, fuel taxes, registration fees – and even, lately, parking costs in some suburban shopping centres – without much public policy sympathy.

None of this should be taken as a pejorative attack on public transport. This is simply the reality of how people across our metropolitan areas commute to work, and the costs – taxpayer and private funded – involved in making this happen. No one, me included, is seriously proposing a divestment in public transport systems in favour of private. The public transport network is an essential element of our transport system. Without it, our urban workforce mobility collapses. Witness any number of occasions when train or bus networks fail, for whatever reason. Plus, public transport has an important social function by providing low cost transport for work and non-work trips for financially disadvantaged members of society who don't have access to a private care, elements of our aged population, and for students.

But given the way employment is distributed through our metropolitan areas, is it sensible to suggest that spending even more taxpayer money on public transport is capable of making much difference, without also dealing with the realities of where the jobs are? This will tell us more about the realities of how much of the work related commute can be provided for by public versus private transport. We need to understand the economic and geographic realities better, and hope that the media, the community at large and transport policy groups base their arguments closer to the existing and future patterns of employment distribution.

For example, proposals to increase public transport patronage by imposing congestion charging regimes to punish suburban car commuters are, based on the evidence, entirely doomed to fail. Only a minority of the metropolitan workforce can realistically make use of public transport (mainly those with jobs in CBDs or inner city areas). For the majority of commuters with suburban employment, public transport isn't an option (and making it one would be even more prohibitive that the costs of the present system). Penalising suburban car commuters thus imposes tax penalties on those least able to afford it for no policy gain. Then there are the proponents of 'free' public transport, who might need to explain how providing this service to the highest paid workers in our economy, at the expense of the lowest, stands the test of social equity.

The reality of where jobs are located throughout our metropolitan economies, and the nature of those jobs, should be a starting point for discussions about how to more efficiently manage our transport networks. Unleashing further economic potential in our cities won't be achieved if the policy discussion is removed from the realities of workplace geography.

Public policy and urban planning have become preoccupied with where we live, and with types of housing choice and form. Little discussion seems to take place about where we work. But where we work, and the nature of those jobs and the demands they make of our urban infrastructure arguably have a larger bearing on urban economic efficiency than housing. I hope this and previous articles have made a few observations about the demography of employment that will promote further thought and discussion – based on realities rather than myth or presumption.