Philip Laird

Rail freight efficiency and competitiveness in Australia

In 1994/95, the Australian rail freight task was approximately 100 billion tonne kilometres (btkm). This freight task included some 37 btkm for the haulage of iron ore in Western Australia, 28 btkm for coal haulage in Queensland and New South Wales and about 16 btkm for interstate rail freight. This paper mainly concerns how improvements can be made to the efficiency and competitiveness of interstate rail freight services through the upgrading of sections of mainline track that currently have severe speed‐weight restrictions. Recent improvements in rail freight efficiency are discussed, with emphasis on two indicators: average unit revenues (cents per net tonne km), and average energy efficiency (net tonne km per MJ). Rail freight efficiency is high for the Western Australia iron‐ore operations, Queensland coal operations and Adelaide‐Perth general freight operations. However, between Australias three largest cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, some 36% of the mainline track fails to meet basic fas...

Vertex embeddings of regular polytopes

Abstract The question of when one regular polytope (finite, convex) embedds in the vertices of another, of the same dimension, leads to a fascinating interplay of geometry, combinatorics, and matrix theory, with further relations to number theory and algebraic topology. This mainly expository paper is an account of this subject, its history, and the principal results together with an outline of their proofs. The relationships with other branches of mathematics are also explained.

Road cost recovery in Australia and New Zealand

Road cost recovery from heavy vehicle operations in Australia has been the subject of further studies in addition to the eleven studies summarized by Ogden (Transport Reviews, 1988, 8, 101–123). The recent adoption of increased mass and dimension limits for heavy vehicles has also resulted in some changes to road cost recovery. As of January 1987 a new Federal Interstate Registration scheme became effective. The level of charges have been reviewed in 1987 and 1989 by an Inter‐State Commission, and have resulted in further changes in road cost recovery. The paper reviews these changes and recent studies. The results of these studies range from the Federal Bureau of Transport and Communications Economics finding significant under‐recovery of road system costs from heavy vehicle operators to a Royal Commission into Grain Storage, Handling and Transport finding that sufficient revenues are generated by the various taxes and charges on road transport to cover the costs of any marginal increase in road freight....