The Victorian Department of Infrastructure (DOI) officially launched the Melbourne Freight Movement Model (FMM) on Monday the 30th of April. The Minister for Roads and Ports, Mr Tim Pallas, welcomed the gathering of 150 guests, commending and endorsing the work of the DOI and the consultant team responsible for developing the FMM. Mr Pallas stressed the importance of the freight task to the Victorian economy and the role that the FMM will play in developing understandings of the total freight task and planning for its efficient and competitive future.
Mr Fotios Spiridonos, Manager- Transport Modelling and Analysis, DOI, and Dr Hermione Parsons, Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development, spoke of the value of the FMM to both industry and agencies as a planning tool. They indicated that the FMM provided the first snapshots of both the spatial and the network distribution of commodities available to industry and agency alike, and how the FMM enabled robust forecasting of future Commercial Vehicle volumes and activity patterns within Melbourne and from Melbourne to external regions.
The project was peer-reviewed by Dr Russel Thompson from the Urban Logistics Studies Group at the University of Melbourne. Dr Thompson spoke of how the model is not only a first in Australia, but is leading edge internationally. He indicated that support from industry, in the provision of real supply chain and transport data, and the rigorous model validation processes carried out, underpinned confidence in the model’s predictive capability and its subsequent value as a planning tool.
Dr Darrell Bowyer, Managing Director of IMIS, the lead consultant on this project, provided the audience with an overview of the model, its development, inputs and outputs. He also presented high level case studies which demonstrated the practical application of the model. These included the presentation of road network impacts in the event of the development of an inland port in Melbourne’s South East, designed to redeploy significant volumes of container traffic away from the Port of Melbourne.
IMIS and its associates have been pleased to be part of the development of the FMM and look forward to the results of its application in Melbourne’s Infrastructure planning in the future.
More information regarding the FMM can be found on this Website (see brochure below) or by contacting Angela by email on imis@imis.com.au
