Review into supply routes

Mar 14, 2022

A review is under way to look into Australia’s road and rail infrastructure and associated infrastructure. Photo by Rodney Braithwaite

The Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics is leading a review into the resilience of Australian road and rail supply chains.

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The review will:

Define and determine key risks to critical supply routes — routes that transport large quantities of freight or are critical to supply of essential goods or services across Australia.
Identify key risks to critical supply routes in the short, medium and long term — including weather events or natural disasters, limited alternative routes, and limited and difficult to access alternative transport modes.
Assess the potential vulnerabilities in critical supply routes.
Complete a stocktake of recent relevant work by government and industry intended to identify and mitigate Australian domestic road and rail supply chain risks.
Identify data generation, capture and use requirements necessary to assess, inform best‑practice and improve road and rail supply chain resilience.
Determine the critical routes at highest risk of failure.
Develop and present pragmatic options for governments to mitigate or address risks to critical road and rail supply chains, in alignment with the government-agreed framework to identify and mitigate critical supply chain risks.

The focus of the review is on Australia’s road and rail infrastructure and linked infrastructure.

Matters such as international supply chain vulnerability, costs of freight, the transport workforce and critical inputs to the transport sector are outside the scope of the review.

The review will take into consideration key transport and infrastructure strategy, policies and reviews and will engage closely with the Freight Industry Reference Panel as well as with:

key infrastructure owners and operators;
freight industry stakeholders — including freight customers;
state and territory governments;
National Recovery and Resilience Agency;
Infrastructure Australia;
CSIRO;
The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, including the Office of Supply Chain Resilience; The Department of Home Affairs (including Emergency Management Australia and the National Coordination Mechanism);
The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, including the Australian Climate Service; and
any other groups deemed necessary.

The review will conclude and report to government by December 2022.