Revolutionizing Australia's Supply Chains: The Power of TraNSIT in Transport and Resilience
In a vast country like Australia, having dependable transport infrastructure is crucial. Each year, over 1.5 billion tonnes of freight are transported nationwide. Commodities such as food, forest products, fuels, minerals, construction materials, and general freight often travel over intricate routes that can stretch over 1000 km before they reach their destinations. This can be very costly for producers and manufacturers, and there's a significant risk of transport disruptions.
Since 2012, CSIRO’s (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) Transport Network Strategic Investment Tool (TraNSIT) has been helping to enhance supply chain efficiency and guide transport and logistics investments both in Australia and around the world.
Originally created to cut the cost of transporting cattle from northern Australian farms to markets both domestic and international, TraNSIT is a sophisticated computer model that maps out Australia’s supply chains, freight movements, and associated costs in great detail.
For each supply chain route, TraNSIT picks the most cost-effective option, taking into account factors like travel distance and time, vehicle type, road conditions, driver fatigue regulations, and vehicle decoupling costs. These insights allow national and local governments to focus their road and rail investments where they will make the biggest difference.
More than a decade since its creation, TraNSIT now covers over 185 commodities, handling data for more than 25 million truck trips and 200,000 rail trips every year. It continues to expand, incorporating expertise and information from over 450 agencies and organizations across Australia.
More recently, TraNSIT has been adapted to assess the impact of extreme weather events on our supply chains. By partnering with the Australian Climate Service (ACS), the tool has helped improve decision-making in response to natural hazards. CSIRO supports the National Emergency Management Australia (NEMA) in its national disaster response efforts, which has lessened the effects of extreme events on communities.
TraNSIT also plays a crucial role in long-term planning and prioritizing investments to enhance the resilience of Australia’s supply chains. In collaboration with the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, and the Arts, CSIRO analysed 52 key freight routes and 13 rail routes across the country. This analysis has provided a clearer understanding of how various disruptions impact communities and freight movements on these vital networks.
With the creation of our user-friendly TraNSIT Web and the Supply Chain Benchmarking Dashboard, government, community, and industry decision-makers now have powerful tools at their fingertips. These tools enable them to analyze Australia's supply chains, identify key trends, and pinpoint areas for improvement in freight transport, both now and in the future.
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