ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the Australian context of transport planning in order to set it in international context. Australian transport planning is influenced by both American and European thinking, but Australia has its own unique history, geography and institutional landscape which itself acts powerfully to influence events. The chapter considers the Australian context, starting with its basic urban geography marked above all by distance both from the rest of the world and between metropolitan cities. It identifies some of the critical junctures that have shaped Australian transport planning, and question whether at the present time Australia may be in the midst of one such juncture. Australia is a post-colonial society inheriting British nineteenth- and twentieth-century democratic political institutions adapted for the colonies. Australian local governments have limited functions by international standards, and are generally not public transport providers. The chapter examines the role of federal tier of Australian government in transport planning.
