One of the opening statements in the Liberals transport policy is the high-flying objective to lift public transport usage in Adelaide from the lowest per capita in Australia to "a public transport system that ranks with the best in the world for a city of Adelaide's size". Big call.

Let's see - after a good hunt around, two cities in developed countries that are around Adelaide's population (1.2-1.3 million) and also have train, tram and bus systems are Brussels and Prague. Adelaide covers a hugely larger area than those cities while the latter have a hugely higher population density, which certainly helps the chances of public transport. Adelaidians own cars at the rate of about 700-800 per thousand population. Brussels and Prague are closer together at about 500-600 cars per thousand. The Brussels tram system is roughly about the same route length as Prague's, its metro (including pre-metro) a tiny bit shorter than Prague's.

Adelaide's public transport moves about 67 million people per annum, about 13 million of them on trains, about 8 million on trams and about 50 million on buses (fare-free trips aren't included in the total in case you're wondering why the figures don't add up).

Prague's public transport moves about 1.2 *billion* ppa, about 460 million of them on metro, about 370 million on trams and about 350 million by bus.

Brussels is at the quieter opposite end of the European spectrum, moving about 350 million ppa by public transport, about 140 million of these by metro, 125 million by tram and about 95 million by bus. (Perhaps those extraordinarily low figures are down to all those EU bureaucrats driving cars while telling the rest of Europe that they must use more public transport!)

So while the Libs might have an outside chance of nibbling at Brussels' tail, I don't think they have a hope in hell catching Prague! I think seriously they should be aiming to emulate WA's hat trick between the 1990s and now and delivering sufficient quality to drag as many people as possible out of those cars. Perth lifted its total patronage well over 100% since 1990, from about 63 million ppa to about 155 million today (divided between about 65 million by train, up from 8 million in 1990, and about 85 million by bus, up from 54 million in 1990).

I think P+R would be a good way for them to go, like Perth, as with all that low-density residential, many people will start their journeys by car, but the trick is to intercept them at some point in the journey before they reach the centres and clog them up with traffic and parking. This is exactly what the SA Liberals are proposing, which is great. The other Perth hat-trick is speed (journey time) and that may be a bit more difficult as Adelaide railways don't have the long straightish runs that the railways in Perth do. However, the O Bahn has already been very successful in this regard and the proposal to extend it will build on this success.

As for the trams, they certainly need to work on speeding it up, not only on the Glenelg line, but through the CBD. I hope they can get some good advice on this and look at better trams and traffic light priority. It's nice to finally have some optimism about SA again, as long as the momentum doesn't falter.

Tony P