High performance railway organisations

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By Andrew McCusker, Director of Rail Logistics, and Dr Mark Ho.

Effective rail systems have major societal and economic impacts on Australia’s competitiveness, liveability and infrastructure resilience. There is a pressing need to enhance the rail transport system to become a viable and sustainable transport option in both cities and regional areas.

As railways are predominantly technical systems of delivery for passenger and freight services an attribute of a successful railway company is the ability to develop effective processes and clear communication to achieve high performance for customers. This is where engineers can differentiate themselves to deliver improved culture and organisational excellence. Continue reading →

How to make Australian cities the next resources bonanza

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By Garry Bowditch, CEO, SMART Infrastructure.

Australia must prepare now for a world in the Asian century that is nothing like what we have experienced in the past.

The engine of growth for the world economy will be driven by consequences of migration from agricultural to urban living across the Asia Pacific. Hyper dense cities exceeding 10 million people will be the norm for countries throughout Asia. The sheer intensity of these metropolises will see by 2050 over 75% of humanity living in cities but occupying only a fraction, about 4 per cent in fact, of the earth’s surface.

There is an urgency to ensure our major cities grow and prosper for everyone’s benefit. If we succeed, we will underwrite the next economic super cycle reflecting a surge in productivity and exports of high value Australian goods and services throughout Asia and the Pacific. Continue reading →

Apocalypse Not: doomsday thinkers of Oz should get out more

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SMART Infrastructure Professorial Fellow Prof. Graham Harris writes in The Conversation:

I sometimes wonder what planet this country of ours is on. The environmental debate we are having seems to be in a parallel universe to the rest of the world. Having spent the last four years running one of Europe’s biggest environmental research laboratories, the Lancaster Environment Centre, I find Australia strangely out of kilter.

All I hear here is apocalyptic gloom and doom: either the planet is done for if we don’t act, or the economy is done for if we do! We have a highly polarised debate and even more polarised reporting; with too much hand-wringing and head-banging but too little rational discussion or consultation about what actually to do. Doing nothing isn’t an option.

Read the full article.

Ecology is failing and needs to be freed from our limitations

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SMART Infrastructure Professorial Fellow Prof. Graham Harris writes in The Conversation:

The splendour of nature diminishes day by day despite the strenuous efforts of ecologists and all manner of scientific understandings and interventions. Biodiversity is in decline, and crucial resources become ever scarcer. Meanwhile the human population continues to rise, as do atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and long-term global temperatures.

Governments, corporations, and community groups all over the world invest in conservation and restoration programmes, but to depressingly little end. Obviously far more could be spent and far more could be done, but that would be no guarantee of success – not when our very approach to ecology is fundamentally flawed and wrong-headed.

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Big issues for energy infrastructure

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By Les Hosking, Honorary Professorial Fellow. 

Reliable, secure and low cost energy has been one of the cornerstones of Australia’s economic success. In an electricity and gas context, reliability means a low interruption risk, security means continuity of availability relative to demand and sustainability means meeting present needs without compromising future generations to meet their needs.

A significant, diverse supply of approximately 800 years of brown coal and 300 years of black coal, large natural and coal seam gas resources plus wind, hydro, solar and geothermal have so far contributed to Australia having very low cost commercial, industrial and residential electricity and gas prices. Continue reading →

Science’s stagnant thinking: our rivers need a revolution

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SMART Infrastructure Professorial Fellow Prof. Graham Harris writes in The Conversation:

I’ve been away in the UK for a few years – and what do I find when I come back? In the Murray Darling we are still arguing over inputs (the amount of water to be returned to the river) instead of focusing on the state we actually want the river system to be in, and how to make it so.

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