Searching for Policy Priorities in the Formulation of a Freight Transport Strategy: An Analysis of Freight Industry Attitudes

An efficient and effective freight transport strategy can be aided by early professional contributions from key stakeholders. One broad group who have historically been given limited opportunity to influence the drafting of a freight strategy, are commercial road users and shippers who manufacture and distribute goods. Utilising a data set collected in Australia in 1996 from a sample of organisations involved directly and indirectly in road freight transportation, views were sought on road infrastructure changes, new road infrastructure, non-road infrastructure needs, and transport policies. An optimal scaling approach using non-linear canonical correlation is implemented to search for structural relationships between the underlying policy and infrastructure dimensions and the various industry categories. This framework provides a powerful mechanism for identifying differences among stakeholders in terms of their support for or opposition to specific policies. Results reveal the considerable differences in attitudes associated with the component parts of the freight industry. Acknowledgements. The data used in this study was collected by ITS(Sydney) as part of a larger study funded by the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA). Permission to reanalyse the data is appreciated. The support of Raeburn Chapman and Pravin Raniga of the RTA is gratefully appreciated. Jenny King and Garland Chow contributed to the original study and are thanked for their advice throughout the study.