Maitland CBD Including the Southern Bypass

Maitland is a major inland city centre in the Hunter Region, with the Hunter River bordering the CBD. With the city centre in decline, Maitland City Council approached a team of specialists to help develop a plan to revitalise the CBD and its economy. We were part of this team, tasked with developing a model to explore a CBD Southern Bypass, test options for opening the City Mall, and test the planners’ version of a revitalised CBD.

The model needed to be sensitive enough to test various options for opening the Mall — westbound only, eastbound only, two-way, and a car/pedestrian mix — and land use options within the CBD to create a more open, friendly centre.

The modelling challenge was deriving the travel demand matrix. Because of the site’s geography, with the Hunter River to the north and the New England Highway and railway line to the south, there were only three locations where external traffic could enter or leave the study area. Analysing these traffic counts allowed through-flows to be separated from localised flows, which were found to have different peaks — the through-flow peak occurring earlier because those trips’ destinations lay in employment centres in the surrounding areas.

The model was used extensively to derive a preferred outcome for the revitalised city, and Council has since announced that the Mall will be opened.