What trends will emerge from the crisis of 2020, and what implications will there be for 2021?

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Live and love local

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The lockdown response to the pandemic has evoked a renewed focus on local communities, with families and individuals reconnecting with their local surrounds.

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In medium and high-density inner-city communities, families and individuals will seek a greater voice in development outcomes in their local areas. This will heighten debate on the optimal relationship between new development and community considerations. I expect that in 2021, we will see more development applications contested at independent forums such as tribunals and panels.

 

 

JOHN-PAUL MAINA

Director

 

Delivered to your doorstep

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Driven by travel restrictions and lockdowns, there has been an explosion in the demand for e-commerce and delivery services to your doorstep. This boom has highlighted the important role logistics, freight and last mile networks play in our society.

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As communities begin to embrace tactical urbanism and urban prototyping as legitimate planning and implementation frameworks, Industry must also ensure that the needs of freight delivery and storage space are considered in the mix. This is especially important within medium and high-density inner-city communities where double parking and use of footpaths as make-shift hubs will harm the transport system.

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JAKE TOWNLEY

Engineer

 

 

What will represent best-in-class transport planning in 2021?

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Iterative planning and implementation

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Iterative processes such as tactical urbanism and urban prototyping will be at the forefront of best-in-class transport planning in 2021. Cities and communities will be wrestling to take back road space from cars and allocate this space to the movement of sustainable transport modes, or for public space to accommodate parks, markets, outdoor cafes, retail pop-ups, food trucks etc. The optimal solutions for each community will likely be derived from an iterative process. The adaptable, flexible and low-cost nature of this planning and implementation method will help deliver the right long term intervention.

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WILL ODGERS

Engineer

 

Collaboration with a focus on safer outcomes

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State and Federal Governments are relying on major infrastructure and private sector projects to revive the economy.

 

A rethink of the statutory processes is required to enable timely approvals.

 

We have an opportunity like no other for stakeholders from industry, authorities and communities, to partner around holistic processes, that seek solutions to shared problems with a focus on practical and safer outcomes at work sites.

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DANIEL KATANOV

Engineer

 

 

What changes have you experienced in the way we work with clients and agencies, and what do you foresee for 2021?

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Assessment framework that encourages shared responsibility

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The ability to collect transport data, be it traffic and pedestrian flows or parking demand, has been compromised in some shape or form in 2020.

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Assessments required to inform clients and authorities requirements are now informed by a mix of historic data and first principles methodologies. This combined approach has obvious flaws. Acknowledging these flaws, and the need to provide outputs that are fit for purpose, we have adopted an assessment framework that encourages shared responsibility amongst stakeholders.

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We have done this by focusing on:
 

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Transparency

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• We set out model assumptions and limitations to enable open and honest appraisal of the inputs that inform the model outputs. This encourages dialogue at critical points in the process that ultimately lead to successful project outcomes.
   

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Relevance

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• We know that the more a model tries to capture to replicate reality, the more complex it becomes, and equally the more difficult it becomes for stakeholders to contribute effectively.
  
  Not all situations require complex models. We deliberately seek the right match between purpose and context to avoid unnecessary complexity.
   

 

We expect that until we return to a state of normality, focus in technical areas such as modelling will need to adopt a stakeholder friendly bias, so as to encourage shared responsibility in outcomes.
 

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HENRY MA

Engineer / Transport Modeller