Pacific Highway Upgrade
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Project summary
The Pacific Highway Upgrade program was a jointly funded Australian and NSW Government project to duplicate one of Australia’s busiest transport corridors between Sydney and Brisbane. The Pacific Highway corridor is both a significant freight route and an important part of many Australian family driving holidays.
Commencing in 1996, the program constructed 600 bridges and upgraded 657km of road to a four-lane dual-carriageway from Hexham, near Newcastle to the Queensland border, with the final stage of duplicated highway opening to traffic in December 2020. It is one of the significant life-saving investments the Government is rolling out to deliver a more reliable and safe road network.
The program comprised four main sections, Hexham to Port Macquarie, Port Macquarie to Coffs Harbour, Coffs Harbour to Ballina and Ballina to the Queensland border. Within these sections more than 40 individual projects were delivered. All projects are now open to traffic with minor finalisation activities continuing on some projects such as landscaping, operational and environmental monitoring and defect rectifications.
The Program has delivered a safer, more efficient dual-highway which has reduced travel times, freight transport costs and the amount of fatal crashes along the corridor. It has also improved the amenity of many townships, and helped local tourism and other industries by better linking their businesses with the large market places of Sydney and Brisbane.
| Details at a glance | |
|---|---|
| Action Area | Smarter and targeted infrastructure investment |
| Delivery | Infrastructure construction |
| Location | New South Wales |
| Timeframe | 1996 to late 2020. |
| Financial | Since the beginning of the program, the Australian and NSW Governments have invested more than $15 billion. The total estimated Australian Government spend since 2013 has been $5.63 billion. |
Closer look
Impact on freight and supply chains
The Pacific Highway Upgrade program has increased freight efficiency and productivity for transport operators – reducing costs to business, including travel time, fuel and vehicle costs. Key highway upgrades such as this one support Australia’s growing freight needs and will continue to do so in the future. They also increase Australia’s international competitiveness by lowering freight input costs.
While the focus of the project was to deliver a safer journey for all road users on the 657km Pacific Highway, there have been immense benefits to the agriculture and tourism sector, as well as for local businesses and other sectors as a result of a smoother, faster and more reliable highway.
Over the project’s life, the Pacific Highway Upgrade has been a major contributor to Australia’s economic activity, delivering social, economic and employment benefits to regional areas. More than 100,000 direct and indirect jobs have been generated over the life of the program with more than 3,000 direct jobs supported during the peak of the Woolgoolga to Ballina project alone, injecting millions of dollars into local economies.
| Benefit | Extent realised | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Intended Strategy Objective |
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| Smarter and targeted infrastructure investment | All benefits realised | The Pacific Highway Upgrade has supported the strategy objective of smarter and targeted infrastructure investment on a key freight route throughout the life of the program by ensuring that Australia’s growing freight needs are met and that freight is moved in a more economically and travel efficient manner. |
| Project benefits | ||
| Improved freight efficiency and connectivity | All benefits realised |
The freight industry is the lifeblood of the NSW economy and worth $66 billion to the state. Therefore, it is crucial that domestic and international supply chains are serviced by resilient and efficient key freight corridors. The upgrades on the Pacific Highway, one of the most critical links in the National Land Transport Network, have improved freight productivity and offered greater opportunities for regional local businesses to connect with the larger markets. Travel times have been reduced by an average of 2.5 hours across the length of the upgrade, which has reduced the operating costs for freight operators (and other road users) and improved freight efficiency and connectivity. |
| Road safety benefits | All benefits realised | Since the commencement of the Pacific Highway upgrade in 1996, fatal crashes have more than halved, down from more than 40 per year prior to the upgrade commencing to fewer than 20 in 2019. With the entire route now upgraded to a four-lane divided highway, it is expected that over a 30-year period, 8039 crashes and 4218 injuries will be avoided and 565 lives saved. Improving road safety was achieved by separating traffic, providing more rest opportunities for drivers and including safer access for local residents who access their properties from the Pacific Highway. |
| Improved amenity | All benefits realised | The Pacific Highway upgrade has improved the amenity of many townships currently along the route. The upgrade has resulted in the highway bypassing more than 30 towns and villages which has generally been found to create positive social impacts as a result of the reduced noise, pollution and traffic and improved safety in these townships. |
Project delivery
The Pacific Highway Upgrade program comprised of over 40 individual projects over the last 24 years. The Coffs Harbour to Ballina section was completed in 2020 and saw seven new rest areas, 198 bridges and 17 interchanges being built. This 204km section comprised of six projects, most notably the 155km Woolgoolga to Ballina project, which is the largest single project undertaken as part of the Pacific Highway Upgrade.
The Woolgoolga to Ballina Project was the final link in the Pacific Highway being fully transformed into a four-lane dual carriageway, resulting in a continuous four-lane divided road between Brisbane and Melbourne.
Project management
During the delivery, a monthly Management Review Group was convened, with attendees from the Department, TfNSW and the project Delivery Partner, as well as independent advisors. This mechanism provided effective oversight of the progress on the delivery of the project, and a forum to discuss risks/stakeholder concerns, including environmental impacts, monitoring of costs, production trends and commercial issues.
Stakeholder engagement
As many communities along the Pacific Highway Upgrade route were impacted during the construction phases of the projects, the project team worked closely with local communities, as well as other stakeholders with a strong interest in the projects. A mixture of technology-based activities and conventional engagement activities (e.g. face-to-face community information sessions) were utilised, with social media playing a more critical role in the later years of the upgrade. In the delivery of the Pacific Highway upgrade program, the NSW Government worked with Aboriginal communities to ensure impacts on Aboriginal cultural heritage was minimised and committed to supporting the employment of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Island workers.
Delivery model
The Pacific Highway Upgrade projects were delivered through a mixture of models. Certain projects were designed and constructed by contractors, whereas other projects used designs completed by internal NSW Government staff, with construction contracts awarded to external contractors.
| Input | Forecast | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery time | Mid 2016 - late 2020. | Planning and preconstruction started in late 2010. Construction commenced in mid-2015 and opened to traffic in December 2020. |
| Indigenous employment and contract awards | Final cost is estimated to be $5.30 billion, including $4.03 billion of Australian Government funding. | These costs include a planning and preconstruction cost of $564.6 million, with both the Australian and the NSW Governments contributing $282.3 million each. |
Lessons learned
The Pacific Highway Upgrade program demonstrated an effective approach to stakeholder engagement through the long collaboration and cooperation between the Australian and NSW Government, as well as with local governments and local and Aboriginal communities. As the program progressed, robust procedures and processes were developed, helping to deliver better outcomes in subsequent projects. For example, informed by previous projects, the construction management plan for the large and complex Woolgoolga to Ballina project was approved by the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and the Environment in only three months.