Searching for Policy Priorities in the Formulation of a Freight Transport Strategy: An Analysis of Freight Industry Attitudes Towards Policy Initiatives

Abstract

An efficient and effective freight transport strategy can be aided by early professional contributions from key stakeholders. One broad group who have historically been given limited opportunity to influence the drafting of a freight strategy, at least in Australia, are commercial road users and shippers who manufacture and distribute goods. Utilising a data set collected in Australia in 1996 from a sample of organisations involved directly and indirectly in road freight transportation, views were sought on road infrastructure changes, new road infrastructure, non-road infrastructure needs, and transport policies. An optimal scaling approach using non-linear canonical correlation is implemented to search for structural relationships between the underlying policy and infrastructure dimensions and the various industry categories. This framework provides a very powerful mechanism for identifying policy priorities supported or otherwise by stakeholder classes.