Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemRural road management using visual assessment techniques( 1991)This thesis explores the management of rural road landscapes using information derived from visual assessments of these landscapes. Visual assessments of landscapes have previously been mainly restricted to investigating scenic/aesthetic matters. However the methods used in these assessments seem to be appropriate for assessing other matters and have potential for application in the management of multi-use resources in rural roadsides. In this thesis, the responses to rood landscapes of three expert groups and a public user group are considered. The expert groups responded to the rural road landscapes with reference to their areas of expertise - landscape architects evaluated for scenic beauty, ecologists for ecological significance and fire experts for fire hazard potential. The public group responded to the landscape scenes for their preference (for a Sunday afternoon recreational drive). Based on these responses, estimation values, which are numerical representations of the importance of landscape scenes relative to each other, are derived. Policies - multiple linear and non-linear regression equations which statistically represent the average responses of each of the groups to various roadside features - are also developed. Policies make explicit the relationship between changes in selected landscape features and groups' responses to those landscapes. As this study has a management focus, only measurable and manageable landscape features of rural road reserves are considered in developing policies. In exploring the application of estimation values and policies in the management of rural road reserves, the relationship between the responses of individuals and those of the groups to which the individuals belong is examined, using a technique called policy capturing. The results of this study indicate that for the four main groups, within group differences exist in the way in which group policies can be used to describe people's responses. The results of this study indicate that the average response of the experts accounts for the majority of their group's members' response but this is not the case for the public group. It is also found that, given the same landscape features, the amount of variance (multiple R2 value) associated with a group's policy was generally larger than that associated with those policies for its individual members. The findings in the present research complement those in non-landscape research, but contrast with the only other landscape research application of policy capturing. Finally, this study shows ways in which information based on the group policies can be used in the management of rural roads. Five theoretical courses of action are investigated with respect to two landscapes - annual burning, annual slashing, tree planting, road widening, and do-nothing. These five courses of action are referred to as management options, and are theoretically applied over ten- and fifty-year planning periods. Only one management option, annual slashing, is found to be successful. The results seem to indicate that, for the landscapes examined, often the best option may be to do nothing.
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ItemTowards the development of a transport energy policy for Australia( 1983)The existing pattern of transport energy use in Australia has been established and the feasibility of reducing such energy use by various strategies has been assessed. Constraints have been identified, and the role of governments and industry in the implementation of such changes by fiscal and regulatory policies has been examined and recommendations made for their adoption by Australian state and national governments.
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ItemThe valuation of road safety for public decision making : with application to Australia( 1982)This study investigates the proper valuation of the social and economic consequences of road accidents in guiding public decision-making and policy on accident research and road safety. The work is in three stages: (i) a review and assessment of road accident cost studies; (ii) the estimation, presentation and appraisal of comprehensive social costs of road accidents for Australia in a recent year; and (iii) a critique of the theoretical and empirical economic literature on the 'value of life', and its implications for the valuation of road safety. The theme of the study is the conflict between the two approaches to the valuation of safety: the practice of treating road accidents as social costs and the alternative concept of direct economic valuation of life and the avoidance of risk. Neither approach has yet produced definitive empirical results and there remain unresolved valuation problems affecting public sector assessments of safety. 1978 Australian accident costs are estimated in a modified 'societal' cost framework which is proposed as a compromise between the two valuation approaches. The composition of this framework Is examined, especially the valuation of fatalities in terms of foregone income. Problems identified include the income concept chosen, the treatment of those not earning, the effects of the age distribution of the accident sample, and the role of the discount rate. The study gives particular attention to the skewed distributions of average accident costs which renders them misleading in use. A method is proposed to simulate accident cost distributions according to injury severity by fitting probability distributions. Finally a critique of the extensive recent literature on the economics of the value of life and safety is undertaken to assess the relevance of this approach to public sector decision making, and its relationship to accident cost studies. This approach, proposes willingness to pay for reduction in risk of death as the correct safety valuation concept, with suggested application in road safety, public health, and environmental pollution policy. Recent empirical studies using this valuation concept are examined, and appear to produce plausible results. A useful but controversial suggested elasticity relationship between willingness-to-pay valuation of life and the foregone income method is also discussed. Some preliminary conclusions are presented about the conceptual and empirical feasibility of valuing road safety, and about the limitations of the 1978 Australian estimates as parameters to guide public policy on road safety.
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ItemPublic transport policy and land use in Melbourne and Toronto, 1950 to 1990( 1997-01)This study examines the reasons behind the decline in public transport patronage in Melbourne between 1950 and 1990, through a comparison with Toronto. The share of urban travel undertaken by public transport has declined since the Second World War in all developed countries, but public transport patronage in Melbourne appears to have declined more rapidly than in most other industrialised cities. Public transport has, however, gained or held ground in Toronto, where the form of development is similar in many ways to Melbourne. Most accounts of Toronto’s success (particularly in Australia) regard transport/land-use integration as the critical factor. The contrasting analysis maintains that Melbourne’s urban form has changed over this period to a dispersed, car-oriented pattern. This study evaluates a different interpretation of the ‘Toronto model’. This is that Toronto has undergone similar urban changes to Melbourne since the war, but has found a way of operating public transport successfully in a relatively dispersed environment. The contrast with Melbourne, then, is not primarily in land-use patterns, but in policies towards the operation of public transport.