Regional sustainable development has become a worldwide issue in recent years, but there is no single and universally agreed method of choosing indicators for sustainable development assessment. The subjective selection of indicators will affect the results of assessment. Each evaluation method has its own advantages and disadvantages, and the methods used to determine indicator weight also differ. Regional sustainable development is a complex system, which is difficult to evaluate objectively and scientifically using a single method. Therefore, a new integrated indicator system and evaluation model is constructed here to more accurately reflect regional sustainable development level. The indicator system and evaluation model were constructed using a case study of 17 cities in Shandong Province, China. The indicator system includes 4 subsystems, i.e., economy, society, resource, and environment. These indicators were selected through correlation analysis and discrimination analysis. A back propagation neural network was applied to evaluate the respective scores of the 4 subsystems. The comprehensive score for regional sustainable development was evaluated using the analytic hierarchy process with entropy correction. The results show that sustainable development levels in these 17 cities show a gradually decreasing trend from east to west and from coast to inland. Cities with an underdeveloped economy usually display poor levels of social development and serious environmental pollution. Through the improvement of indicator screening, evaluation model, and result correction, the error caused by a single evaluation method can be reduced significantly. This new methodology for indicator selection and comprehensive evaluation provides a new perspective for the assessment of regional sustainable development.

Autonomous Vehicles (AV) are likely to have profound effects on cities. Using a survey of regular commuters into the Adelaide CBD we investigate views on AV ownership, use, vehicle sharing and attachment to conventional vehicles. We then explore potential vehicle flow and land use change in the Adelaide CBD under two scenarios. Whilst the overall vehicle fleet reduces under both scenarios, total trips may increase and some of the predicted benefits of AVs may not eventuate until a lengthy transition period is complete. These findings have policy implications for how the transition to AVs is managed.

Planning policy in most Australian capital cities aims to divert development from the fringe into established inner urban areas. A fundamental logic underlying this policy of land recycling is that State and Local governments are challenged financially to provide appropriate standards of infrastructure and services in greenfield locations. This paper explores the range of infrastructure provision issues and seeks to identify the actual costs of provision in different locations. Three case studies in metropolitan Adelaide are used to explore the cost factors for developers and government. The study highlights the complexity of analysing the infrastructure cost of different developments which arises from variable record keeping and accounting practices. Nevertheless, the study is able to draw conclusions about the relative costs of infrastructure provision in different locations and reinforces previous studies that have demonstrated the higher costs of infrastructure on the fringe as opposed to infill. The estimated infrastructure costs for the infill development case study at Bowden are shown to be approximately one third that of both greenfield and renewal areas of the Playford Alive project on the urban fringe.

Australia’s 560 Councils are responsible for assets worth approximately $270 billion, many of which have a life span >50 years and so will be affected by climate change. Maintenance and replacement of Council infrastructure is guided by principles, models and tools in the International Infrastructure Management Manual that currently do not allow for climate change impacts or the likely flow-on effects to asset and financial management. This paper describes a financial simulation model developed to calculate the financial impacts of climate change on three major asset classes of importance to Australian Councils: hotmix sealed, spray sealed and unsealed roads. The research goes beyond previous studies of climate change impacts on roads in that it provides a location specific toolkit that is designed to assist councils in their asset management and planned maintenance programmes. Two categories of inputs are required for the model: climate inputs, relating specifically to baseline temperature and rainfall distributions and climate change parameters for temperature and rainfall; and engineering inputs, relating specifically to the three road types and the key parameters of their performance and useful lives over the scenario period. The baseline distributions are then shifted mathematically within the model by the mean change as projected by a selected Global Climate Model (GCM) scenario. Outputs of the model are the historical baseline climate variable distributions and the climate change (CC) impacts on road performance are in the form of changes to the useful life of the asset and associated changes in asset resurfacing and rehabilitation costs. Ten case study local councils in southern Australia are examined. Using IPCC AR4 scenarios, the results suggest that the incremental impact of climate change on all three types of road infrastructure modelled will be generally low. There are small cost reductions over the period for all road types as a result of the expected drying and warming trends in the climate.