SECTION 9: WHERE TO FROM HERE?
9.1 Given the ABS' investment over the past 24 months, the fundamental building blocks are in place in order to develop a TrSA in the future. That is, the ABS has funded the development and collection of an additional set of transport statistics relating to the 2010-11 financial year, and has prepared a detailed outline of the TrSA framework. However, completing the pieces of the national TrSA framework, and the resulting compilation of the TrSA, will require an investment from users as the ABS is not presently funded for this work.
9.2 From consultations with transport agencies, Treasuries and key industry bodies, it is clear that the TrSA would fill critical data gaps and provide the key input for modelling transport policy options. Data on wider transport activity in the Australian economy is sparse, and based on limited assumptions due to a paucity of recent reliable data. This paper explored options to produce a TrSA which would assist in meeting these information needs. The dependencies for this include conceptual work which needs to be undertaken plus the fact the supply-use and input-output tables are released between 18 and 30 months after the reference period. However, during this timeframe, the ABS could look to be releasing partial transport data sets, in particular some of the results from the transport industry and activity surveys with some data already released in July 2011 relating to transport activity collected in the 2009-10 Economic Activity Survey, which was released in Australian Industry, ABS cat. no. 8155.0. Following any initial release of a TrSA, the continuation and regularity of any future releases would be subject to demand and funding.
9.3 It is hoped that this information paper provides readers and users of transport statistics with a better understanding of the potential uses of a TrSA, as well as an appreciation of the conceptual and practical issues associated with putting such an account together. Currently, the ABS does not have the resources to produce a comprehensive TrSA so additional resources would need to be made available to produce one. Users are invited to provide any comments on this paper, including comments on potential scope and methods to sean.thompson@abs.gov.au.
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