Melbourne has taken the dubious honour of being the most expensive city to travel around according to a new report.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00The Australian Automobile Association has crunched the data of all associated transport
00:07costs for the June quarter in its Transport Affordability Index.
00:12And it's found that these costs have risen by 10.5% for the year, that's almost three
00:17times the amount of inflation, with households now spending on average $25,000 per year on
00:25all of its transport costs, or a staggering $458 every single week.
00:33But if we break that down capital city by capital city, you can see that here in Melbourne,
00:38unfortunately for us, we're at the very top of that list, with $29,500 per year spent
00:45on all associated transport costs.
00:48Brisbane isn't far behind, and in fact, when you look at it relative to income, Brisbane's
00:52actually on the top of the list, spending about 20% of income on transport costs, against
00:59the national average of about 17.5% being gobbled up by transport costs.
01:05And if you look at the weekly cost of Melbourne, that's about $568 per week, which is $150
01:14on average per week more than what you see being spent by Hobart households.
01:19Now that's mainly because Hobart has that half-price public transport fare that they've
01:25introduced.
01:26We're expecting to see for the September figures, Brisbane's costs to come down rapidly because
01:32they've also done likewise, but this is a really quite astronomical figures that we're
01:38talking about, quite eye-watering, they're hard to believe, but the Australian Automobile
01:42Association insists that it's triple-checked these figures, and it's because it covers
01:47such a range of transport costs.
01:49For example, we've seen rising interest rates really pushing up the cost of those big car
01:54loan repayments.
01:55Also, skyrocketing insurance costs, as well as soaring fuel bills, with on average, people
02:01spending more than $100 or so a week just to fill up their cars.
02:06And that's why the Australian Automobile Association is saying that governments really need to
02:11consider this when formulating policy, because it's a real price pain point for so many households
02:17and businesses.
02:19This is a significant and unavoidable expense, and it's also a key driver of inflation.
02:25And the push to really make those more accessible and affordable public transport alternatives
02:34to be able to get on a train or bus or tram is something that is being called for by five
02:39councils around Melbourne.
02:42The Hume Mayor, and that area covers all of the northern suburbs, for example, he says
02:47that if the Victorian Government wants to stick to its ambitious target of 60,000 new
02:52homes built within the next 10 years, then it really has to do a lot to help with transport
02:59infrastructure to be able to cope with this booming population.
03:04And it's actually taken a look at the Broadmeadows train station as a prime example, saying that
03:10it's not fit for purpose at the moment, and it really won't be able to cope with such
03:14a population surge.
03:16And governments need to fix this if they're going to have people look at cheaper forms
03:21of transport.