Message from the CEO

This past year has been extraordinary for Transurban on all fronts – operations, development and acquisitions.

We took our first steps into a new market when we acquired Queensland Motorways, a move that has added five new assets and projects to our portfolio. We purchased the Cross City Tunnel in Sydney, where we already have a significant footprint in the road network. We also reached the final stages of work on two current projects, and made significant headway on those in our pipeline.

These are exciting times for Transurban. But we also know that with all these changes comes additional responsibility and challenges. Our most significant challenge continues to be how to relieve the rising pressure on our urban transport networks due to rapid population growth and development. To do that, we have to work hand-in-hand with our government partners to generate and deliver innovative, sustainable solutions that support our communities and our economies.

In the past year we achieved important milestones on projects that will improve the efficiency and reliability of transport networks in Australia’s two biggest cities – Sydney and Melbourne.

In Melbourne, we reached final agreement with the Victorian Government for a major upgrade of the western link of CityLink, which has become increasingly congested over recent years. In Sydney, we selected a preferred tenderer for the contract to design and build the NorthConnex Motorway, a 9km tolled tunnel between Hills M2 in the city’s north-west to the southern end of the M1 Pacific Motorway.

In FY14, we made significant progress in delivering our sustainability program, which supports the way we do business.

We achieved our goal to develop and roll out our company-wide community investment strategy, which resulted in the launch of our first community grants program in Australia. We also embraced a new approach to improving our roads, which will see us rejuvenate the road corridors we manage under our concessions. We are identifying opportunities to create appealing green spaces and walking and cycling paths around our assets, which ties into our strategy pillar to “be good neighbours” and supports our vision to strengthen communities through transport.
 
We have a full and demanding year ahead of us. Our focus will be on integrating our new Queensland network, and taking on operations of the Cross City Tunnel and I-95 Express Lanes. We will continue to strengthen the sustainability outcomes of major projects, such as NorthConnex, and embed sustainability targets across the business.

As always, we will keep looking for ways to deliver better transport networks for our cities, while ensuring that sustainability is embedded in everything we do.

Scott Charlton
Chief Executive Officer