The Breakfast Meeting for 2026 was held at the RACV Club in Melbourne on Tuesday 12 May.

The special guest speaker was Dr Jonathan Spear, CEO of Infrastructure Victoria.

The event was kindly sponsored by O’Brien Traffic.

The ITE-ANZ annual Breakfast Meeting was a bit later than in past years, primarily due to the inability to get any politician to accept our invitations to be the guest speaker.  We normally like to have a federal or Victorian transport minister or shadow minister as the main attraction, as it is a rare opportunity for professionals to see and hear our leaders up close.  Failing that plan, we invited Dr Jonathan Spear, CEO of Infrastructure Victoria, who immediately accepted – and delivered a stunning talk on Victoria’s transport infrastructure.

After some wake-up coffee and delightful eggs benedict, Jonathan expounded on IV’s transport priorities in Victoria’s 30-year infrastructure strategy, which was tabled in parliament in November 2025.  Some of the public transport highlights in the strategy recommendations are: extending tram routes, upgrade public transport stops to make them accessible, increase bus services, build a new bus rapid transit network, extend and electrify trains to Melton, upgrade and extend train infrastructure, and reconfigure the City Loop.  The strategy encourages safer and more walking and cycling.  For roads, the key recommendation is to further extend modern traffic control technology along arterial roads and smart motorways.  Improvements to rail freight and encouraging off-peak deliveries in urban areas are recommended.  Road use charging also gets a mention as a future option.

Climate change is a key theme.  The strategy encourages reducing emissions in infrastructure projects and, importantly, being better prepared for the impacts of climate change through adaptation action plans.  Managing and maintaining the transport infrastructure is not forgotten.

During the Breakfast, we heard via video from Gordon Meth, the ITE International President, and Farukh Ijaz, the ITE Global District Director.  Angela Mejia gave a report on the Young ITE group and James Wylie reported on the activities of the Traffic Engineers at Monash.  Krutarth Dhebar from our major sponsor, Austraffic, talked about the importance of transport data.  Nick Szwed expressed our sadness at the loss of Lindsay Oxlad and Ken Hall.

The ITE-ANZ undergraduate award for 2025 was presented to Sophia Cibei from University of NSW.  Sophia made the trip down from NSW specially for the event.