Our 2016 Annual Breakfast Meeting was this year co-hosted by the Transport Australia Society of Engineers Australia and was held at Melbourne’s prestigious RACV Club in the CBD. This event was a huge success, attended by over 100 guests including special guest speaker, The Hon Jacinta Allan MP, Minister for Public Transport.

The Minister has been in her role for just over 12 months and reflected that much of the Government’s transport policies are starting to come to fruition such as:

• the completion of the first of 50 level crossing removals at Burke Road
• numerous level crossing removals underway or in final stages of procurement, including the recently announced Caulfield-Dandenong Level Crossing Removal Project
• finalisation of a business case for the Melbourne Metro Rail Project for submission to the Commonwealth Government in 2016 to secure federal funding
• procurement of critical early works for the Melbourne Metro Rail Project for commencement in 2017
• ordering new trains and trams to enable increased public transport services.

In addition to the Minister’s update, we were pleased to announce the three winners of ITEANZ awards who included:

• Jack McLean, Emeritus Professor at the Centre for Automotive Safety Research at University of Adelaide, awarded the ITEANZ Contribution to the Profession Award
• Dr Melissa Duell, University of New South Wales, awarded the SIDRA SOLUTIONS Postgraduate Award
• Laura Aston, Monash University, awarded the GHD Undergraduate Student Award.

We thank the Minister for her time and our key sponsor, RACV.