The line charts delineate the figures for the use of public and private transport in five Australian cities, namely Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra and Melbourne, between 2000 and 2010.
Overall, although the number of people having private cars outweighed that of using public transport throughout the ten-year period, the figures of five cities in Australia remained stable during ten years. There was a large gap in the two categories witnessed in Melbourne, while, in Sydney, these two shared an equal percentage during that time.
To begin with, when it comes to the proportion of population preferring public means of transportation, in 2000, Sydney was the forerunner with 20%, followed by Perth with more than 15%. The other three cities’ figures were below 15%, leading by Adelaide’s of approximately 13%, and the lowest becoming Melbourne with only 5% of the population. While the year 2003 and 2006 exhibited slight fluctuations in those proportions, they did not surpass each other and remained at their range until the end of the period.
Meanwhile, the data of private vehicles’ users in Australian cities appears to witness a wider range, in which the highest line belonged to Melbourne with around 80% while the lowest number was of Sydney ranging from merely 10% to more than 20%. The occupation of Canberra’s residents opting for private transport was around 60 to 80%, which was nearly six times higher than the use of public ones. Following that, this number of Adelaide quadrupled the number representing the choice of public transport, whilst Perth’s doubled and Sydney’s was nearly equal to it. This means that the difference in Melbourne within these two categories remained the largest, with the gap of approximately 75%.