Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us at Transurban's 2024 Investor Day. Before we get started, a few housekeeping comments. Today's presentations are being filmed and webcast live. Presentations will run for approximately 45 minutes. The executive committee will then join us on stage for a live question and answer session, where questions will be taken both from the room and via the webcast. I'll now hand you over to Michelle, following a short acknowledgment of country.
Transurban acknowledges the traditional owners as the original custodians of this land. We recognize their connection to land, waters, and community. We pay our respects to Australia's First Peoples and to their elders, past, present, and future.
Thank you, Hannah, and good morning, all, and thank you for joining us for Transurban's 2024 Investor Day. It's really great to be here in Melbourne, and for those of you who came in from the airport, I hope you saw the great progress we've been making on the West Gate Tunnel project. We now have 100% of the steel girders for all 23 bridges up near the port or city end of the project. And 100% of the concrete segments on the elevated road have been installed. It's really starting to take shape. So I've now had six months in the CEO role, and a lot of people ask me if it's what I expected. In many ways, I've enjoyed it more than I could have imagined.
A real focus for me has been setting the tone for our business, internally and externally, and demonstrating the value we create for our customers and partners, and in turn, for you, our investors. As I was preparing for today, I went back to what I said to our board 10 or so months ago. I was clear that Transurban is an exceptional business. We have world-class infrastructure in great cities. We have 10.5 million customers who make 2.5 million trips on our roads every day. We're supported by the world's best pension funds. We've delivered for our investors, and most importantly, we have extraordinary people who care deeply about our business. Those points are the bedrock of our business today. But I'm also confident about what lies ahead and the significant opportunity for growth and value creation.
To achieve that, we know we need to evolve. The world is different to what it was five or 10 years ago, and we need to be different, too. So how we evolve is what I'll focus on today. I'll talk about our growth potential and what we're doing to realize it. You'll then hear from Darren Patterson, our General Manager of Strategy, on the long-term macroeconomic trends underpinning everything we do. And finally, Henry Byrne, our CFO, will talk about how we'll manage capital allocation and operating efficiencies to support growth and value for our investors.
We'll have plenty of time at the end for questions with the executive team. So let's start with growth. I'm firmly of the view that we're a growth business with enormous potential ahead of us. This starts with traffic growth in our markets.
Long-term macro trends will continue to drive traffic growth, especially here in Australia, where population growth is the highest since the 1970s. Over the next two decades, Australia is expected to grow by over 6 million people. The need for more road infrastructure in Australia and other markets will continue as governments work to move more people and goods around our cities. We have significant development opportunities in our existing markets. New infrastructure opportunities will continue to emerge. On top of this, evolving technology will create a need for new transport and mobility solutions. We'll look to these to reinforce the value of what we offer our cities and potentially new markets over time. But I want to be clear, this is not about growth for growth's sake.
It's about looking for the right opportunities to grow both value and distributions over the short, medium, and long term... Now, you'll all be familiar with our pipeline of opportunities. Today, we have AUD 14 billion of projects well underway, and another five projects being evaluated as we speak. More than 85% of our assets have the physical potential to be widened, extended, or enhanced to meet growing demand. We know the growth potential is there, but we're also very aware that we're operating in a different world today to even a few years ago.
Customer, community, and government expectations have evolved. The cost of capital is different, and that impacts the way you, our investors, think about your return expectations. Our government partners face competing priorities for their capital, particularly to meet the demands of population growth and the energy transition.
In this context, I've been really focused on making sure our approach is fit for the time, because we need to evolve to achieve our growth ambitions. On this slide, you can see six focus areas that we landed on. These are interconnected, and together will accelerate our ability to pursue growth. To work through these, we set up a number of diverse internal teams. We challenged them to take an ambitious ten-year view on how we could bring these areas to life and deliver our next phase of growth and value. The teams produced some really excellent work that I wanna share with you.
Firstly, our strategy and purpose, so that these reflect our growth ambitions. We're a business that brings together the needs of our stakeholders, from the original idea all the way through to operating the infrastructure that makes our cities better places to live.
Three connected themes have emerged: helping cities grow, making lives easier, and mobility solutions linked to road transport in both old and new ways. These themes get to the core of what we want to achieve as a business. They're fundamental to how we'll create value. We then asked ourselves how we can deliver more value to our customers. We know that our right to participate in new growth opportunities is tied to our ability to deliver real and clear value in the eyes of our customers, and that's both on and off the road. We've explored ways to create more value for customers and how we can make their interactions more enjoyable. This customer lens presents a real point of difference for us when we consider new opportunities, and to differentiate ourselves from our competitors.
On the screen, you can see examples of how we're interacting with customers today at multiple points, both on and off the road. These are areas we're building on to create even more value. For example, we're looking at how we can give customers more personalized information, so they can make choices in real time that suit their priorities, whether that's cost or speed of travel. We've worked hard to create value for customers through our Linkt Rewards program. This is even more important right now with cost of living front of mind. Our customers told us that fuel was a top budget concern. We responded with an expanded fuel offer with Shell Coles Express that saves customers up to AUD 0.26 per liter. We've had a great response to this and some of our other early initiatives.
So far in FY 2024, we've seen an uplift of more than 750,000 rewards members, and we're now approaching 1 million members. That all equates to people seeing more value than ever in using our roads, and that will create long-term value for investors. The next area we're looking at is our government partnerships and how we achieve mutual goals. In my discussions with government, I've focused on how we can achieve long-term outcomes together. We each have our own priorities, but we share the common goal of making it easier to get around our growing cities.
The key for me is to create trusted and enduring relationships. Having a problem-solving mindset and finding new solutions is essential to how we work with our government partners. We have some great examples of how we're trying to do this in each of our markets.
Let me take you through one that's front of mind right now.... Toll reform in New South Wales is a huge opportunity for us to work as a true partner with government. We've started by looking at the issue through a customer lens. We believe we can work with the New South Wales government to find an outcome that is good for Sydney and protects the significant investment that we and our partners have made. AUD 36 billion that we've invested over 2 decades has provided enormous livability and productivity benefits in terms of travel time savings, reliability and safety.
So for example, a trip between Parramatta and the city is almost 25 minutes faster than a decade ago, despite Sydney's population growing by nearly 1 million people over that time. But we recognize that the evolution of Sydney's roads through multiple governments has created a variety of tolling regimes.
We've been very clear that we support an approach that better suits the needs of Sydney motorists in terms of efficiency, fairness, simplicity and transparency. There are some areas where we all clearly agree, like the need to reform the toll notice process and to improve on-road signage to enable drivers to make more informed decisions. We obviously agree with both the governments and the recent interim review's recommendation that existing contracts should be honored.
There are other areas where we may agree in principle, but we're working through different options and solutions to meet the needs of all stakeholders. We and our partners will continue to engage with the government and the independent review to reach the best result possible. Ultimately, this process gives us the opportunity to create better outcomes for Sydney motorists and demonstrate the benefits of Transurban as a long-term partner in that market.
I want to move now to the focus area we call optimizing the core. Transurban has grown significantly over the past decade, and with that has become more complex. So this area is about really making sure that we're as efficient as we can be. Henry will talk to the detail of this, and you'll see we have meaningful ambitions here. The focus will be keeping a lid on our cost growth. It's not about absolute cost out, but freeing up capacity to make sure we have the ability to grow.
This includes interrogating how we're organized and working on our operating model to ensure that we're structured in the most effective way. We've also been working to make sure we have the right framework to prioritize our capital allocation and refreshing our distribution policy. Henry will also cover these.
All of this helps us get the right balance between long-term value creation and distributions for our investors. Now, while Australia takes much of our focus, further afield, North America is another area that we've been doing work on. We see potential for growth in the Greater Washington Area, as well as potentially new markets. Our business is performing really well, and we have great partners, which gives us the confidence to grow. Washington, D.C., is one of the top 10 most congested cities in the U.S., so there will continue to be opportunities there. In fact, we could easily see our position around D.C. being nearly as big as our Queensland business.
Beyond the Greater Washington Area, we think there are a number of other promising markets. But as I said earlier, it's not about growth for growth's sake. It's not about planting flags.
The opportunities need to be aligned to our business strategy. They need to have the right market characteristics and competitive dynamics. They need to make sense financially, and we need to be clear that we bring something more than just showing up with a check. I'm deliberately not going to start listing markets because no doubt the opportunities will evolve. But as an example, we recently looked at an opportunity in Colorado. We like Colorado, but when we weighed up the strategic and financial factors in that specific situation, it didn't make sense for us to bid. We also recognize that we may need to think more broadly, get creative about the way we show up in new markets. This might mean who we partner with or by leading with new innovative solutions to build our presence.
We've been engaging with a number of states in the U.S. in relation to road user charging trials, as just one example here. The potential for new business opportunities is our sixth and final area of focus. There are some clear trends in mobility and transport-related technology that align really well with the internal capabilities we've invested in. Any one of these has the potential to create more value for our customers and cities. So for example, in our Brisbane Operations Center, we're using predictive analytics, automation, and machine learning to predict congestion and identify and respond to incidents faster. I spoke earlier about evolving customer expectations. Our GoToll app is a good example of how we could build on our customer base and presence in North America.
We've also run connected and autonomous vehicle trials in most of our markets, and there are fresh advances constantly that offer new opportunities. Lastly, we're looking at opportunities broadly around sustainability. An example is our work to support the uptake of electric vehicles among our customers. We're engaging with charging partners to roll out a new program as part of our customer rewards. Each of these opportunities has the potential to reinforce the value that we bring to our cities. But as with everything we explore, we'll be clear on where the long-term value will come from. We're confident that evolving our approach in these six areas will accelerate our ability to pursue growth in both Australia and North America. And by doing this, we'll deliver ongoing focus for all of our stakeholders.
Let me now hand over to Darren, who'll go deeper into the macro drivers that underpin what I've just spoken about. Thank you.
Thank you, Michelle, and thanks to everyone for joining us. As Michelle mentioned, we thought we'd take a small amount of your time today to talk in a bit more depth in relation to traffic and how we see growth building across our cities. Because population growth will inevitably lead to more traffic, and without continuing investment, our cities will become more congested, less livable, and less productive. So let me walk through a little bit of that with that view. Now, the page on the screen now provides a high-level view of expected growth that we're seeing across all of the cities.
The charts and metrics themselves may be familiar to many of you from prior presentations, with the data highlighting growth metrics expected across the cities, while the charts provide an indication of where that growth will be, both in terms of footprint and density anticipated across the regions. Now, from a traffic perspective, we focus on those data points in particular because of what they provide to us in terms of indication of demand and growth, and ultimately the usage of our roads. But I do appreciate there is quite a lot of data out there. So essentially, what the stats emphasize is that there is expected to be strong population growth, employment growth, and key financial metrics across all the regions in coming decades.
But rather than spending much time on them specifically, I thought it'd be a little bit more interesting to describe those numbers and what they mean in a more tangible way, and how we see it through the lens of traffic, demand, and network impacts. It is important to remember, at the end of the day, it's people who travel on the networks, and they do so to get to where they want and need to go, whether that's work, recreation, shopping, or many of the other reasons that we all travel.
Now, if I look across all those five cities, it's worth noting that there is already 25 million people living and working there. Compounding that as our cities are not static, they can and will continue to grow. Now, that puts a significant burden on the transport networks to keep those cities moving.
As an example, in Sydney alone, over the next 20 years, we expect to see another 1.5 million people living there. Across all five cities, the total is more than 6 million people. Those are enormous numbers, and that will inevitably result in significantly more traffic on our roads. Now, to bring that back to a more traffic-related perspective, one of the central things we keep in mind is the cumulative nature of growth. There's always building and adding to the large existing base, which means adding ever more trips. To help draw that out, I thought I might use a simple example from the Sydney network. Now, what's currently on the screen here is an indication of the total demand across the Sydney network in the AM peak period, in this case, 2016.
With over 5 million people living and traveling around the city, what we experience, in fact, what we expect to see, is traffic dispersed across the entire network. Now, that can be seen here on the major roads that are shown, where the thickness of the lines represents the number of vehicles on those roads during the AM peak period. The orange color lines represent the key arterials, while the thicker green lines represent the motorways.
As we look back on 2016, you can see that all the major roads in the city are heavily used, with the motorways in particular, taking most of the load and redistributing that across the region. Now, the chart on the right provides a simple guide to the change in traffic on the motorways and to the other roads, and that's relative to 2023.
Hence, the negative numbers that you can see in 2016 basically indicate that there was less traffic back then, so no real surprise. As you can see, as we move from 2016 to the present, the combination of background population growth and the introduction of new assets, including NorthConnex, WestConnex, and metro improvements, result in traffic demand shifting and spreading across the network. What that demonstrates is the change in patterns of travel as more people take advantage of the better options that are available, with new roads providing those choices, both for customers making personal trips and for commercial travel.
And you can see that most clearly on the chart with the darker green lines, such as those that I've highlighted around WestConnex. Those new assets clearly absorb a significant amount of the background growth and draw it away from the local streets.
But the network improvements are only part of the story. As we add those extra 1.5 million people into the Sydney network over the next 20 years, the pressure only increases. As you can see, as we step through from now to 2031, in the near term, the major infrastructure that is under construction or in planning will help to seamlessly connect the motorway network, allowing easier and more efficient travel across the city. This will have a fairly significant and positive impact on the overall network, particularly around the CBD, that absorbs and redirects the extra traffic. Our toll roads, as part of the network, play a major role in distributing that traffic and those people where they want to go.
Out beyond the planning horizon, where new projects and developments have yet to be identified or programmed, what you can see as we go from 2031 to 2041, 2051, and then finally, 2061, is a situation that has significantly more traffic than we see now. And that is a dynamic that will play out unless meaningful investment in the network continues, and will do so across all of our cities.
And it is a dynamic that underpins the need we see for continued investment to increase capacity, whether it's through enhancements and extensions to the existing network or the construction of new assets. Now, to put all of that growth more starkly into focus in terms of what you, I, and all of us, in fact, will experience, perhaps one of the best ways to think about it is in terms of travel speed.
Now, the chart on the screen now shows that same Sydney network in 2016 in terms of average speeds in AM peak period, with the green lines that you see showing roads where traffic is in free flow conditions, so basically over about 60 kilometers an hour. The orange lines represent slower and more congested lengths, where traffic experiences stop-start traffic. The red lines highlight areas where there's severe congestion, resulting in significant disruption and queuing. The column chart on the right shows the average speeds for the periods across the motorways, which are in green, and separately, the average for all the other major roads, which are in orange.
As you can see, as we move from 2016 through to now, there have been major enhancements in the road network in the form of NorthConnex and WestConnex, which have contributed to distributing the increasing number of trips across the network. That story continues as more planned infrastructure comes online in coming years, in particular the M12, the Western Harbour Tunnel, and the M6. As the addition of those new pieces of infrastructure that help keep the average speeds and congestion levels broadly similar to what we see now.
Things dramatically deteriorate after that in the absence of further enhancements to the network, which we can see clearly as we move to 2041, 2051, and finally, 2061. Over that period, what we see is a rapid and continuous decline in speeds.
While users of the motorway network will continue to experience better conditions than the local roads, customers and all the people who use the roads will suffer rapidly deteriorating conditions, much slower speeds, longer travel times, and severe levels of congestion. This is a dynamic that will play out across all of our cities as they grow. It's worth pause and reflect on what that means for our future, which is certainly not one that any of us wants. Our view is that working in partnership with the government provides the opportunity to keep our cities moving, supporting economic growth and livability.
Now, from a transport perspective, what the combination of increasing traffic and deteriorating congestion clearly highlights the need for continued investment in the transport sector and supports the need and desire of people to travel and the growing populations of the cities.
Now, as Michelle mentioned, with increasing demand on the government's capital, the scale of investment needed to keep pace with our growing cities is likely to require a mix of public and private investment, which is an outcome that supports our view that the pipeline growth before us is both significant and necessary in our existing markets, and one that we can be a part of the solution to deliver by continuing to invest in the network and by actively managing our assets and investing in new mobility solutions to help but accommodate those increasing levels of traffic. Thank you. With that, I'll hand over to Henry to talk through how we'll set up our business to support that growth.
... Well, good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. You can see from both Michelle and Darren's presentations this morning that we see a compelling growth agenda for this business when we look out over the next 5-10 years. This really is the next chapter in Transurban's story, and one of the things that we think will be really important in helping us deliver on this is tightening up how we deploy our capital and resources, as Michelle mentioned. As a part of that, we've been looking at a number of things, including our capital strategy and our cost base, again, as Michelle's mentioned.
So I'll step through that in a little more detail now as part of my presentation this morning. So when it comes to the capital strategy, there are a number of elements that we've been focused on, which we've set out here on the slide. So I'll step through these in more detail, but at a high level, our aim has been really to shape the business to be simpler and more efficient. And that's also to make sure that some of the key outputs, like free cash and distributions, are more transparent and predictable. So the first area that we have here goes to that point I made a moment ago around deploying our capital and resources more effectively in support of the growth opportunities in front of us.
As we said, this should also help us control our cost base more effectively, which is something that we're already seeing come through. The second area that we have here focuses on the balance sheet and ensuring that remains strong. So this business has managed that well for a number of years, and as you'd expect, it remains a focus. We're continuing to see the benefit of that at present, and so our cost of funding is a good example. Most of you will be familiar with the muted increases in our weighted average debt costs in recent times, and that's despite the higher interest rate environment that we've been in. That's really a credit to the work our treasury team has done, both to diversify the maturity profile and hedge out the book.
And then also tied into this ongoing focus on our balance sheet, we've done some work to provide more clarity on how we think about capital allocation, and that's in particular in the context of the growing balance sheet capacity and the growth investment that we see. So that capital allocation also plays in to how we think about free cash and distributions, and so I'll step through that in a little more detail in a minute as well. And then the third area that we've called out here relates to the continuous balance between distribution growth on the one hand, and investment in new opportunities on the other. That's obviously been central to our investment proposition for a number of years, and that remains the case today.
To that end, we want to improve the transparency and the predictability around our free cash measure, which is obviously aligned to the distributions that we pay. And so that's behind the changes that we've made today to the definition of free cash going forward, really, to more closely align it to the operating performance of the business. We've also refined our target to ensure distributions are within that range of 95%-105% of free cash in any given year, and that's really just to enable a smooth growth path that's aligned with our business performance over time. If I turn to look at what we're doing to drive more efficiency within the business, as you're all aware, Transurban's grown significantly as a business over the past decade.
We're currently emerging from really a capital-intensive period of project development and portfolio expansion, and as we do that, we see real opportunities to drive more efficiency across the business. This means making our business simpler. It means optimizing core operations, as Michelle mentioned, and that's really in order to set the foundations for sustainable growth. And then, as I said, this should also help us control our cost growth in the business as well. In fact, our first half results highlighted some of the headline cost control that we've been able to achieve through what we consider to be more tactical initiatives. But you'd recall at the time when we put those results out, we signaled that our real focus was on driving greater efficiency within the business, and that's really to support that long-term growth agenda that we're talking about.
So on the slide here, we've set out some of the key areas within our cost base, and we've done it in a way that's consistent with how we've been reporting them in recent years. So when we think about potential for efficiency gains within the direct costs, which are obviously the largest component here, one area that we're looking at is the operating model, and that's as Michelle outlined earlier, and that's really just to ensure it's structured in the most effective way to support this next phase of growth. We're also leveraging data and analytics to get deeper insights into the supplier performance and identify areas for improvement there as well. We also see opportunities in the maintenance category here. So a key part of that's refining our asset lifecycle planning process.
That includes things like optimizing work phasing, which will minimize closure times, which obviously benefits the customers as well. We also see increasing sophistication around what we call our asset risk management, and that's helping us move to more efficient maintenance practices as well, so things like condition-based maintenance. And then you can see the other spend categories that we've called out here relating to tolling expenses on the one hand, they're largely correlated to traffic volumes and have certain CPI escalation in them as well. And then development spending is the final bracket we've called out here, and that's going to naturally fluctuate with the opportunities set in front of us at any given point in time.
I think we've been clear that we do see a number of opportunities in front of us at present when we look out over the near to medium term. So standing back from that, I think there are really two important benefits that stem from this continued work to interrogate the cost base and the operating model. The first is that the headline cost control will support EBITDA margin performance, and ultimately that flows through to free cash and distributions. And then the second is it's going to allow us to reallocate funding towards these growth initiatives, and that includes new development projects and the innovation agenda that we have as well. So if I turn to the capital allocation framework, we spent some time thinking about this, and you can see that set out on the slide here.
So the majority of this should be familiar, given it's broadly consistent with the approach that we've had for some time. The framework here really shows how we're thinking about our earnings, how we're thinking about the balance sheet, and then that balance between investing in growth and growing our distributions. Having said that, I do think there are a couple of areas where we provided some clarity. So if I walk you through the key elements, you can see it begins with internal capital generation, which are the earnings that come off the existing portfolio. So EBITDA growth flows through to free cash and distributions in turn. And as you can see here, our stated aim is to consistently grow distributions over time and target that free cash coverage of 95%-105%.
To put a bit more context on that, our principle of aligning distributions with Free Cash does remain key, but having that narrow range of Free Cash cover around that really allows us to manage through some of the variability that we see at the margins in any given year. So for instance, in years where we might be impacted by construction projects, we could be a little under that 100% cash coverage. And conversely, in those years, years where we have stronger growth off the back of investments into the network, we might be a little over the 100% coverage. But the point is, marginal variance in cash coverage is going to support a more consistent, predictable distribution profile.
The expansion in earnings also supports our growing balance sheet capacity, and that's obviously available to be redeployed back into that growth investment, which in turn should play back in to support the earnings growth over time as well. The external sources of capital supporting the balance sheet are also set out here, and I think there are a couple of things to call out. Firstly, we see capital releases being applied towards growth investment, and that's something that we've been moving to for some time, obviously. Secondly, we may look to equity for opportunities of scale, which is something that we've typically done. Having said that, I think it is important to call out that we currently have significant balance sheet capacity to support some of the things that we're looking at.
Related to that, we do see good appetite for our credit, which was demonstrated during the recent Eurobond issuance that we did, and that was significantly oversubscribed. So that continued demand really gives us options as we continue to take a conservative approach to managing our debt portfolio, and that's really with a focus to ensuring that we have stable and predictable funding costs. For completeness here, we've also called out capital management options in the form of buybacks and special dividends as a possibility. Although, I think it's important to note with this, that it's not something that we're currently contemplating. The main circumstance where we consider these is if the growth opportunities that we anticipate didn't emerge over time, and we found ourselves with surplus capital as a result of that.
So ultimately, the framework we've set out here shows you how we're thinking internally about capital allocation decisions and the importance we're placing on delivering both distribution growth and long-term value creation. As I mentioned earlier, we've sought to simplify the way we define Free Cash, and that's with a view to better aligning it to the operational performance of the business. With this, it's important to note upfront that this change won't impact or provide any benefit to management's short-term or long-term incentives, so the plans on foot won't be changed for the new definition.
This is really about, as we look forward, better aligning Free Cash with the operating performance of the business and making it more predictable and transparent. The other thing that's very important to call out here is that we don't see it changing the profile of Free Cash or distribution.
So it's really about removing some noise at the margins and minimizing adjustments and improving transparency. The logic behind this stems from issues that I think many of you were aware were emerging under the old free cash definition, particularly as the number of joint venture interests have grown around the business. So in particular, the lumpiness and the timing of distributions from our joint ventures was clouding what we thought was the transparency and predictability of free cash in any given period.
And to address that issue, we've revised the basis for calculating free cash to more closely align it to operating earnings, and we've set out a detailed comparison under both the old and new definition in the appendices of the materials that we've put out. But you can see the new definition or the new approach set out on the slide here.
So the starting point is now going to be proportional EBITDA, and we've made some minor adjustments to how we'll report that going forward. Specifically, we've removed the impact of the derivative PPA movement, which as you know, is small and non-cash, and we'll replace maintenance expense with the actual maintenance spend, which we think is a better reflection of the free cash impact of that line item. And then from there, you can see fairly straightforward free cash or adjustments to determine the free cash, which will form the basis of determining the distribution. We've laid out some more detail on this next slide.
This really just shows the key aspects of the previous free cash definition that resulted in inconsistent outcomes in both timing and then also where there were inconsistencies in the application of things like debt amortization and maintenance spend across the group, as I mentioned a moment ago. So for those who are interested in stepping through that, feel free to reach out to me or the investor relations team to work through any of the detailed questions that you've got. So I'm going to leave it there.
Hopefully, it's clear from this presentation that we're setting this business up to support Transurban's growth agenda, and that really means driving efficiencies across the business and deploying our capital and resources where they're going to have the greatest impact for you, our investors. We'll now go back to Michelle for some final comments. Thanks.
... Thanks, Henry. So I'm really excited about the future for Transurban. We have great foundations and capabilities, and the need for infrastructure and mobility solutions is stronger than ever. I'm confident that we'll play a part in that growth, and in doing so, we'll create value for our investors by focusing on the needs of our customers, being a trusted and enduring partner, and continuing to find new solutions as the needs of our cities evolve. By doing this well, we and our stakeholders have a lot to look forward to. So thank you for your time this morning, and we, we'd like to share some footage of our West Gate Tunnel project while we set up for Q&A with all of the executives. So thank you.
Thanks very much, Michelle, and I hope that you enjoyed our presentations today. We obviously now have all of our executives on stage ready to take your questions, with the exception of Sue Johnson, who unfortunately has COVID today and who'll be joining us online from Brisbane. For those in the room who'd like to ask a question, we have Stu and Justine from our investor relations team. Put your hands up, guys, give us a wave. We do have roving mics today. We do ask that if you're asking a question in the room, you do wait for the microphone so that those online will be able to catch your question. For those online, a reminder that you can submit a question via the chat box. So who's gonna kick us off today?
Hi, guys, Justin Barrett from CLSA. You highlighted again the North American opportunity, and, and you highlighted some specific states or regions where you see some favorable characteristics. Can you just maybe go into a little bit more detail around what those favorable characteristics are?
Yeah. So, hey, Justin, we've got Beau Memory here, who many of you probably haven't met, but Beau is now leading our North American business. So I might hand to Beau first, and then I'll come back.
Sure. You know, we think of favorable markets. We're looking for things like population growth, strong economic development indicators, enabling toll-free legislation, and a willingness to partner with the private sector. And, you know, if we look across, you know, the U.S., there are several markets that come to mind. We mentioned, I showed you Colorado earlier, that's among them. You know, it shares those traits. Texas, Georgia is one of them, are just some of the markets where we're paying attention.
But what we didn't want to do is call them out specifically, 'cause it will, it will depend on which opportunities emerge and how they shape up, both strategically and financially. So on top of it being a good market, we need to be clear on what we bring to that market as well.
Michelle and Miles-
I think we have a question from Ian.
Just on that theme, you know, you guys bid on Elizabeth River Crossing and really got beaten there, and, you know, Parkway went for 67 times. I guess just simplistically, how are you gonna sort of get those sort of bids to meet your criteria in your business, given the aggression of some of the other parties, people out there in the market trying to establish similar positions?
Yeah, and that, that's exactly at the heart of what we're focusing on, Ian, which is we know, if what all we're doing is showing up with a check, it, it may not work. And so where we're focused is how, how we, in terms of our relationships and our presence in the markets, might be able to bring something else. And that's why deliberately, we chose not to bid or we stepped away from specific opportunities. So we're looking at things like, how do we bring our partners into those markets? How do we think about the innovation we might bring? And just trying to find perhaps a different way into, into markets.
Can I just ask another question? Darren put a really interesting slide looking at the speeds and the change of pace of the traffic. Interested to understand how long does it before the speeds drop to levels where governments tend to respond? Because you look at your slide for Sydney, for instance, you know, if I was the government, I'd go, "Oh, I'm all pretty good till 2041. I don't have to think about this till 35." I'm just sort of intrigued in the different regions before it sort of gets to threshold levels where government do need to respond.
Yeah, Sydney's a bit unique because there are a whole lot of projects. There's about AUD 14 billion worth of projects about to sort of come online. I don't know, Henry or even Darren sitting over there, if you want to add?
... Yeah, well, I can start, and maybe Darren can clean up. But you could see from Darren's presentation, there was a clear inflection point in that when he clicked into the 2040 range. And what you were seeing there was that we can see clarity around investment into the network when we look out to the 2030 horizon, which is why you still see relatively sort of free-flowing conditions, and you don't see a reduction in speeds. But we haven't yet kind of modeled in the projects that will be needed in order to maintain the kind of free flow on the network.
So the message out of that was really that in the absence of governments coming to the table and working with us and others to continue to build out the network and find those mobility solutions, there's a big problem coming, and that's not just Sydney, it's all of the cities, because essentially, the sort of demographic characteristics at play are quite similar. So I think that was the key. I don't know, Darren, if you've got anything to add. He gave me a tip.
Excellent. Can I ask one more question?
Sure.
Just on your dividend policy, years ago, you bought TQ, and you prepaid the maintenance provision. Are you gonna have an exception for that, or not prepaid, but you sort of carved it out of your distribution policy at the time. Is it similar on a go-forward basis with this new policy, or is it just straight out cash being paid?
Sorry, I missed. I missed the question.
This is on the TQ maintenance provision, because that was treated slightly differently in the past. You said, "We'll draw debt against it.
Yeah, we just had differences in different... Some of the joint ventures were different in terms of how the cash moved up.
Yeah, and that, that was specific at the time. I recall we had quite a significant maintenance provision that we carved out. I think as we go forward, that falls away as an issue, to be honest.
I think we have a question from Anthony.
Yeah, hi, Anthony Longo, JP Morgan. Just a quick one on the free cash flow growth. I mean, one of the key pillars is the operating model, it seems, to really sort of drive that growth. I mean, in the context of the margins you are making at the operating level, what sort of changes and what sort of improvements can you actually make at that operating model to really underpin that growth?
Henry, do you want to take that?
Yeah, sure. I mean, we obviously there's a whole range of things we're doing to drive efficiencies within the business. I talked initially about the tactical things we've done, so we've looked into supplier contracts. We are looking more sort of fundamentally at the structure of the business, and again, Michelle's sort of leading that and alluded to some of that work that's going on. We think as we start to step into that and make some of those changes, we can have opportunities then to drive economies of scale across the business.
So we see some duplication in terms of some efforts that are going on currently within the business. We also think that just the way the business has been structured and given that growth, the business gets in its own way a little bit nowadays as well.
In sort of freeing up, creating a more streamlined structure in a way that kind of will work for the growth agenda that we're setting forward, we think we're gonna get both cost efficiencies, but also just more from the resources and the capital that we're deploying towards the growth agenda.
We have a question from... Is it Andre?
Thanks. Andre Fromyhr from UBS. Maybe just reflecting back on the long-term traffic and congestion projections, were you able to call out which parts of the network, and including outside of Sydney, that are more likely to require major capacity within your current concessions?
Yeah, I mean, to some extent, I'm gonna get Darren to jump in here, because he and I were having a long conversation about this, recently. But yeah, it, it sort of depends partly on where the populations move within the cities. But we can already see in certain parts of the network, some parts of Sydney, like, you know, around the M7, even beyond the current project to the north. Brisbane, clearly, you know, certain parts of all our cities are already seeing congestion, so you can see it coming in short order. And then longer term, it will depend on where the populations are moving within the cities. Darren, did you want to add to that? I feel like we should have Darren up on stage, but
No, I think Michelle's picked up the key points there. And bridging back to Ian's question, transport is very local in its nature. So where those congestion levels are, and they were pointed out on the diagram as well, is around things like the Gateway and the Logan in Brisbane. And the locations that you can already see congestion in Sydney is around areas such as the M2, the components where we're already fixing on the M7, and where the government is focusing on other areas like the M5 Southwest, are all areas that have continuous focus now and will continue to focus on in the future as well.
If you don't mind, just one more, just to follow up on the cost efficiencies, so probably for you, Henry. I guess you've updated towards that lower end of the guidance, as it relates to this financial year. But then the... I'm just trying to reconcile the comments around, you're not talking about absolute cost reduction, but you see EBITDA expansion. Is that sort of a medium-term expectation? Is it growth in costs, but slower than revenue? Is that the way to think about it?
Yeah, absolutely. You should be thinking about it like that, given where we know revenue should ordinarily kind of find itself in terms of growth in any given year. We deliberately haven't put out specific cost guidance sort of out over the medium term, although we have said that we think we'll be able to control it. So, you've seen evidence of that this year. And again, when I was talking through the cost story when I was up a moment ago on stage, we're clear that what we've done to date is probably more tactical.
So there's been a big effort within the business to interrogate our cost base, to look at things we can do around supplier relationships, to interrogate our approach to maintenance. When we think about the operating model changes and things like that, that's yet to come.
We think that there'll be a kind of not just a benefit through the efficiencies that we'll drive out of the business at that point, but there'll be an ancillary cost benefit at that point in time as well, through removal of duplication, making sure that we're sort of pointing the right resources in the right direction around a limited sort of focused number of opportunities that we've got in mind.
Oh, good day, Nick Dass from RBC. I'm just interested in construction risk. Obviously, there was the issue with West Gate Tunnel that you had to settle. Just interested in what mechanisms you're able to deploy going forward to avoid a scenario like that? I realize West Gate Tunnel was relatively unique with PFAS, but interested in what contractual tools or mechanisms you might be able to deploy in the future. Thanks.
Thanks, Nick. We might get Hugh to jump in on this
Sure. Thanks, Michelle. In terms of contractual solutions, I think you've seen quite a significant shift since we settled the West Gate Tunnel dispute a couple of years ago. So if I use the M7, M12 project as an example, we did significantly enhanced pre-contract development engagement with both the asset itself, but also the various bidders. So the information on the table, the risk-sharing arrangements, were more nuanced, more defined, and focused on areas that meant the risks out with the person that could control it. So as an example, we retained some of the site risk in the M7, M12 because we knew it was in our median, and we'd dealt there before, and there was actually no economic reason to pass that on to the contractor.
So we're very focused on D&C contracts still being there, where you pass the key risks on to the specialists, but we are, in essence, trying to define them more narrowly, do more pre-contract work to ensure that they are priced and allocated more effectively. We've also done that over in the US on the Project Next contract, so we're seeing it pay some dividends there. Obviously, those projects aren't complete yet, but on the other hand, you know, we continue to watch the market really closely because given the profile that Michelle and Henry have spoken about, we expect to keep engaging. So those relationships and how we are contracting remains really vital and quite dynamic.
The only thing I'd add to what Hugh said is how we phase projects. So you may see us do them in phases and stages as opposed to all at once as well. We have a question from Cam.
Yeah. Thanks. Cameron McDonald from AMP. Just interested in the concepts around these adjacent investment opportunities and, you know, and how you are thinking about constraining the amount of investment and time you're putting into these things, and the differences in returns that you're expecting, either in terms of, you know, payback period, you know, absolute levels of return, et cetera, given that it's a step away, albeit small, I'm presuming small relative to the core business. And then, you know, and then how you prove that up to the investment community that these things are actually paying back, as opposed to just spending more money, you know, that effectively go through the distribution or lack of distribution growth, you know, from that investment.
Yeah. So, Cam, that's very front of mind for us. So we can see there are trends that are emerging. We called out a few of them. None of us have a crystal ball on how they'll play out. I think a couple of points I'll make, and I'll get Henry to add, is one, the trends we spoke about are actually pretty fundamental to the core proposition we have today. So we're not talking... You know, these are things that add value to the business we have today. They'll bring value to development opportunities, for example. Secondly, you know, Henry spoke through the work we're doing on efficiency in the business, and as best we can, trying to manage within the existing sort of cost structure.
Now, to the extent there's something that has potential to be much more than that, but it's way too early to get ahead of ourselves on that. But we'd absolutely, you know, be talking to the market and educating as we go, like we do with our development opportunities as well. So I think right now, you should see us sort of looking at things within our, within our cost structure, and then, of course, we'll come and talk to you as things evolve.
Yeah, there are a couple of really important concepts. Reinforcing the core proposition is really important to whatever we're looking at. So we're not looking at things that don't generally have that characteristics, and so that actually becomes quite important in then maintaining a competitive advantage as we go to look to try and develop further things under the auspices of the current model. We think that's quite important. Building off competitive advantages within the business as well, very clearly, where we think we have a right to place, which is why we're quite narrow at the moment. You've heard us talk a little bit about smart infrastructure as it plays into autonomous freight, is an area we've been looking.
You'll probably start to see us look a bit more broadly around the customer proposition, the payment horizontal, which you've seen other companies like us look at. We do think that there is a sensible niche that would make sense for us to augment the customer value proposition, which again, plays back into the core. To the extent that any of these then become standalone, separable business propositions, we would look at them like that.
We see the kind of maintaining of the core investment proposition is critical, and so any sort of the way in which we would approach trying to take any sort of new business opportunity would be paying heed to that and probably thinking about how separable they are, and then funding them under separate arrangements, to be honest, if they had any scale to them.
And can I just ask a different question, just in terms of, you know, the population growth and the demographic drivers you spoke about? You know, if you look, say, in Victoria, and you look at the maps that you showed, you know, the spread of the cities is just becoming-
... You know, so much, much more pronounced. You've got cost of living pressure, you know, on families. You've got, you know, housing pressure, et cetera. So, you know, as you get some of these regional cities becoming, you know, probably having faster population growth than, say, Melbourne, you know, is there an opportunity or a need for you to actually broaden out from just being capital city-focused, particularly given the Victorian government's broke?
It's a good question. It's one, we talk about. I mean, when we look at it, we say our capital cities, even though they're spreading capital cities, so I agree with you. But as those capital cities spread, there's still enormous growth. You know, Sydney's gonna grow by 25% over the next 20 years. Brisbane's 40%, Melbourne's somewhere between the two, 35%. So the growth in population in the cities is enormous. It's spreading, and that's why you've seen, you know, what we've seen in Sydney already to date, and that's why WestConnex, NorthConnex, M7 are adding huge values, huge value to those cities. So I think it is still very much about, for us, a metro area value proposition, but recognizing those metro areas are spreading.
Rob?
Yeah, good day. Rob Coe from Morgan Stanley. Thanks very much for the presenters this morning. First question, maybe for Mr. Moorfield, about the deal with Viva. I wrote down that you're saving nearly 1 million customers AUD 0.26 per liter. I may have that wrong, but that's what I wrote down.
It's not quite that, yeah.
Okay, okay, I'll correct that. Well, maybe you could correct me for what the actual stats are. And I guess just an upside and a downside question to that. That's a pretty amazing customer take-up. Should we be looking for the whole 10 million customer group to sign up for these kinds of things? What kind of insights are you getting from that customer take-up? And then also, I guess, down the track, I mean, that's all funded by that counterparty. How do you think about, you know, if that counterparty changes strategy or wants to move or something like that?
Yeah.
Thanks, Rob. Thanks for the question. So yeah, we've moved our membership since September last year, up to nearly 1 million now, which is quite a significant uplift of-
That's four times.
Pardon?
Four times.
Four times, from just active communication with our existing customer base. And we've saved, I think it's nearly AUD 8 million for our customers, through the rewards program. So it's quite... It's getting quite a large sort of uptake and advance. We're doing nearly 200,000 transactions a month now through rewards, which is people, our customers are actually actively using the rewards. We think there's a great opportunity, and, and it's gonna be a big focus for us to activate that customer base further, given to the latter part of your question, the entire 10 million customers.
The rewards program is gonna be looked at in two parts, one in Australia, because we, we think we have a unique proposition here where we have far greater access to the broader community than what we do, the more local based activity in North America. Still have a program very much focused on Australia. If we can activate that, the majority of that customer base, or at least half, that's gonna be a very significant rewards program for us, for the Australian market. In North America, we'll go a little bit more specific.
We, we are looking at rewards there, but it's going to be more targeted, potentially with a more global player that will give us the reach that we need to, to make a meaningful contribution to the rewards there. So it's a... We're going through a phase two.
We're considering this, quite honestly, as a proof of concept. That's. And we've seen the success go so well. We're looking to really scale this coming in the next couple of years.
Yep, and the second part of my question about the long-term sustainability of the program?
At the moment, without going into the specifics of how it's funded, you know, the rewards partners themselves, the people who are contributing to providing the reward to the customer, are seeing great benefit out of it. They're seeing significant revenue shifts, and we're being able to demonstrate that through their own data and through our data, and, they're very happy to be active participants in the reward program. And, that sort of implies where the funding is actually coming from.
Yeah, cool. That sounds good. All right, maybe just a broader question. Seeing as you're wearing this lovely yellow tag today, can you just give us an update on strategies for road safety and where you're at with your RISI targets, please?
Yeah. Hugh, do you want to-
Sure, thanks. Yeah, thanks, Rob, for calling it out. National Road Safety Week commenced yesterday, so hence why we're wearing the yellow ribbons, and really topical in the context of the horrendous accident that everyone would have seen up in Brisbane late last week. In terms of our performance this year, it's actually been the best we've seen in many years. We've seen great improvements across each of our markets. Some of that is luck, without a doubt. Some of it is the bringing on of new roads, because we know that safety and design is the best way to make roads safe, rather than retrofitting safety elements. So particularly the opening of NorthConnex and WestConnex has driven fantastic outcomes, and Sydney, therefore, is seeing a lot of those improvements.
Our most challenging area continues to be Queensland, for two reasons: older assets, but also open road assets, which are inherently more challenging to retrofit safety systems to. We're increasingly using data, hotspot, real-time, connected vehicle data to predict areas of problem and to address them in advance. We're seeing really great improvements in those areas. Long way to go, though. While our roads continue to be much safer, we want to contribute more broadly beyond the extent of our roads, but also continue to invest, because it's a core part of our customer proposition that Michelle referenced. It, it's just an expectation. It's not an upside, it's an expectation that our roads are safer.
So we'll continue to invest in that area, and we really do wanna bring out that that it's National Road Safety Week and contribute, continue to contribute via the Kidsafe program and the NeuRA partnership.
Maybe touch on how we've used that data to improve signage on roads.
Yeah, for sure. Particularly in there, sitting in Victoria here, some of the exits off CityLink, we noticed that vehicles that were connected—it's about 5% of the fleet at the moment, which gives you quite rich data—were pulling quite significant sideways G-forces, and so we can, we could see that that indicated late swerving, late decision-making. So what we did was bring back signage further away from the exits to give people more heads-up that their exit was coming. We saw particularly rear-end and sideswipe crashes reduced by 100% at that location. Clearly, that's a fantastic outcome. We won't get 100% in every scenario, but it was data that we wouldn't have had from crashes. It was really from the connected vehicles and allowed that advanced detection and essentially near-miss data.
As connected vehicles become more and more part of the fleet, that data will get better and better.
So we have a question online. How are you thinking about next steps for the New South Wales toll review?
I'm gonna let Michelle take the first bit of that, and then I'll, I'll add.
Sure. Well, thank you for that, Michelle. Thank you for the question. As Michelle mentioned in her presentation, we are, and we have long advocated for reform. We are at the table also with our investment partners to work with the government. Reform in its nature is not an easy solution to come by, and so, we really value the opportunity for us to continue to have the dialogue with the government as well as with the independent reviews. As we mentioned before, there are lots of different stakeholders that we need to, we need to consider, in terms of finding the right solution, but very much focused on what is the right thing to do for Sydney, what is the long-term solution that we need to play a part in?
Where we're at with the process, I think you're aware, the interim report was released earlier in March. The independent reviewer, led by Professor Fels and also Dr. Cousins, have been engaging with us as well as our investment partners, seeking our feedback, and providing that. That process is in parallel, but in a way, also a little bit separate from government, who has also acknowledged that the review is a separate independent process and is separate from government policy. So obviously, Treasury, Transport for New South Wales, all the agencies, along with the political stakeholders in New South Wales, are considering government policy in parallel. We're very fortunate and very privileged to be part of those dialogues, and very much considering the options that we have.
For those of you that have trawled through the 300-plus pages of the interim review, you'll appreciate the richness that has been put into the review to date, and it's an interim report with a view of the final report coming out later on in 2024. A lot of considerations in a few areas, most importantly, what is the tolling regime and the setup for the whole of the Sydney network that is going to help deliver the opportunities and the objectives in simplicity, transparency, fairness, and efficiency that the government has said are the fundamental objectives of this review.
But then also lots of opportunity for us to actually improve customer experience and also the longer-term travel and the process efficiencies, that can come out through toll notice reform, which is the administrative process, the fee structures that we can... we think are considerable opportunities for us. And even well before the reform, we have been in dialogue with the government, both departmental and political, to put some of these changes that we see are industry-wide opportunities for us.
So maybe just to sort of step at that, there's a sort of consultation process happening now. We'll have a submission that will go in in the next couple of weeks, probably. We expect submissions will be made public, so we can talk a bit more about it then. But really, we're constructively, collaboratively at the table as part of the process because we do think there are solutions here that work for the needs of all stakeholders, and we're just gonna work those through over the coming months.
We have Anthony, and then Ian
Anthony Moulder from Jefferies. On that toll review, how long would... I would think pricing is a component of what you would like to change. How long could it take for you to unscramble the egg as far as the Sydney network for a pricing review?
Yeah, you're right to say we're not starting with a blank sheet of paper. I agree. I think there are. It's probably a little early to comment until submission comes out, and we get a bit further down the process. But we think there are opportunities and different. There are opportunities with the way things are set up to to look at ways of looking at specific tolls of different parts of the city. So I think we can talk about that a bit more in a little bit, but we think there'll be a way through that. Yeah.
Related to some degree is your relationship with state government. Obviously, the New South Wales state government doesn't wanna do another toll road within this current term, probably the next term. Just comment on how your relationship is and whether or not you see Transurban being a monopoly, effectively the monopoly operator in some of these key states on the East Coast.
So remember, we're a regulated business. We don't set our tolls. We are, as part of this process, sitting very collaboratively and constructively with the government and with the review to work things through. You know, it goes back to what we had on the screen in terms of our those six focus areas. Two of them, I think, go directly to this. So starting with the customer lens, and secondly, how we show up as an enduring and trusted partner, recognizing we're not starting from zero, but we do think our view of the network actually gives us an ability to sit down and find a solution that works.
Just one. Sorry, the last point is, but are you hearing from state governments that they want to introduce competition into the network?
The government's always got an opportunity with any new road to, or, you know, any new opportunity they want to put to the market, to do that in the way that they see fit. They did that with WestConnex. Actually, though, that was a competitive process. For us, it's about how we show we bring the most value, and that's starting with the lens of the customer and the other solutions we can, we can bring.
Michelle, I think that some of the dialogues that we're having with the government, we've been really open about choice. So it's not so much competition, but in the eyes of the customer, wanting to make sure that they have choice. And so the conversations that we have with the government start with: What are the different modes of transport? So in addition to the AUD 14-odd billion worth of road infrastructure project that the New South Wales government is delivering, they're also doing metro, they're also doing light rail, investing in lots of other transport modes, so the customer actually has the choice. And we're working actively with them to make sure that the integrated transport network actually works. And then once those infrastructure pieces are in place, making sure that the customer has the right information at hand.
And so some of the information that Darren took us through around travel time and choices, in independent and third-party provider information like Google Maps and Waze, those are all information that help the customer decide which is the right mode, which is the right route, and then whether the way they want to choose a toll road or a non-toll road. So we think of all of those things as the way to, give the customer choice, whether it's through directly competitive options or whether it's actually just the right information in the hands of the people that are making the decision for how they want to travel. And those dialogues we've been long engaged in, and we continue to do.
Look at it as the combination of the things we spoke about earlier. It's how customers on-road and off-road need to feel they're getting the most value from us. We think if we do that, we'll have a part to play in the growth of Sydney and other markets. I think at the end of the question-
Michelle, you made a comment or Henry made a comment saying that there's a more detailed fundamental review of the business, and so you're actually running it. But you haven't sort of given us a timetable for maybe when you get to a point of conclusion. But just sort of interested in how you're starting to think about that fundamental change, if you can actually give sort of color on that.
Maybe just to understand your question, Ian.
Like, firstly, when will you actually get to the point of making a decision about fundamentally changing how you're organizing?
Oh, you mean in terms of... Yeah, we're working-
You're doing the work on it.
Yeah. So look, that's always an evolution, but we're working on it as we speak. I would think in the coming, you know, in the next pretty short term, what we've been talking about internally is expecting some change. And really, that's centered on, you know, to Henry's point, how are we gonna be more efficient? And not just efficient in dollars, but efficient in how we do the work, in terms of the way we, you know, our operations are as effective as possible, but also making sure we've got the right focus on our stakeholders. And so we're just having a look at that at the moment, and I think it'll be pretty short order when we'll be able to talk about that.
Does it mean, does it mean IT systems are having to get reorganized or, or rebuilt or?
There's some of that. There is potentially some room for simplicity there, and Simon can touch on that. And yeah, so potentially, yes, there is some opportunity for that.
Okay, one final question is, I feel sorry for Sue getting out of bed for this presentation. When is the Queensland government actually gonna make a decision on your great offer on the lane widening? And, you know, can we expect it before the October election, which I guess they prorogue in September?
Sue, are you on the line?
I am. Thank you for the question, Ian. It was, I would say, expected, perhaps. So thank you for your consistency. I would say the need is indisputable, and through the presentation, you've heard Hugh talk about safety improvements that upgrades provide, which obviously for Gateway and Logan is something we would always look forward to. Darren's talked about congestion and the population growth. So all those ingredients mean that this is still needed. The timing is a matter for government, and so we'll keep working with the state government. We have a good relationship. We talk a lot about what is the best for Southeast Queensland with the population and also the games coming, and we'll continue to do that.
I don't have any further updates for you, Ian, but I do appreciate your continued focus and interest.
So we have one more question online, and then we might take last two questions in the room. So does Transurban have an AI strategy? How does Transurban see AI impacting their business?
Yeah. So I'm gonna get Simon to start with this one.
Sure. So, we're active users of AI at the moment. We operate, I think it's somewhere between 15 and 20 models across the business already. And so some real examples of those are we have Road AI that sits in a car and looks at the pavement of a road and automatically sends the quality of the road pavement back into a control room, then gets it serviced if it's something's wrong with the road using computer vision. We've also implemented a model where our jet fans are regulated based on traffic volume. So as traffic comes through, as it increases, the fan will speed up. As it slows down, the fan slows down.
And that's enormous because the fans are a huge cost in terms of keeping the roads running, but they also contribute to the CO2 savings because they do consume a lot of energy. We've done a number of computer vision projects in car recognition. So through any type of weather, traffic conditions, we've been able to improve the way that we can recognize a number plate up to 98% of the time through computer vision and ML learning. So not to mention the one that Michelle spoke about earlier. So we see it as a great opportunity to both optimize our cost base, but also looking at new adjacencies and how we can apply that to either it could be our rewards program or some payments as Henry was talking about.
There's gonna be a lot of opportunity that's gonna come through rewards, so through AI, sorry, and yeah, we're very actively looking at that.
We have a question from Joseph.
Hi. Joseph Vargyas from Goldman Sachs. I noticed that the EastLink potential sale is still on the opportunity and delivery pipeline slide. Can you perhaps provide us with an update on the progress of that process?
Yeah, we might get Nikki to start with that one.
Thank you for the question. As we understand, EastLink investors are currently in the process of completing a sale for a 19.8% interest. The size of that stake and the investor arrangements do not align with our core growth objectives. We do not agree with the ACCC that an acquisition by Transurban would lead to a substantial lessening of competition. We're not currently involved in any active discussions with EastLink investors, but there may be future opportunities where, an interest in the asset could come up that would be of interest to us, and it would be at that stage that we would then seek to either, you know, challenge the current decision or make a new application. But we do remain focused on the growth opportunities within Victoria and more broadly, and also with our relationships with the, Victorian Government.
So to clarify, a controlling stake would need to be on offer for you to be interested in participating?
I think it would depend on both the size of the stake, but also the arrangements that go with that stake. I don't know if-
Yeah.
-Henry, who's been in the market longer than me or Michelle would like to add to that.
No, no, that's spot on.
Yeah-
I was just gonna reiterate Nikki's point, which is really important, is look, looking at it in the context of other opportunities, including in Victoria and the relationship with the government. So we have to bring it all together in how we think about it.
Okay. And just last one from me. On North America, can you maybe perhaps provide us with some color around the relationship with CDPQ and any potential opportunities around the A25?
Yeah. I'll start, and Beau and Hugh can add to this. CDPQ is a fabulous partner in Montreal. I mean, they are, they are Quebec, essentially, you know, in terms of their position there. And the strength they've brought to the relationships with the government, in particular, has been exceptionally strong. We're very aligned in terms of how we think about the sort of general operations of that asset. We've spoken for some time about potential to improve and enhance the A25, and, you know, those discussions are underway, and I see CDPQ as bringing, you know, very significant value to that. I don't know, Beau or Hugh, if you want to add anything?
I think you covered it. You did.
Final questions from Andre.
Thanks. Just on the updated free cash definition, is there any change in the adjustment relating to amortization of debt? I see the reference to a 12-year profile versus the sort of diversity of the portfolio. But also in the spirit of transparency, are you intending on giving the market any more color on the profile of cash tax over the next few years or, you know, better ways to think about that?
Yeah. So yes, short answer is yes, there is a change to the way we're treating the amortization of debt under the new definition. That's one of the key things we called out. Effectively, what was happening under the old definition is that we were prematurely amortizing some debt in concessions like the Eastern Distributor, Lane Cove Tunnel. So you'd think their concession dates end in the 2040s presently, and yet under the current arrangements, we were required to start amortizing the debt. What we would actually do in practice is shift that debt to the corporate anyway. So what we've said now is, 12 years out from the end of a concession, we will start to amortize the debt in a consistent fashion, which is effectively how we're modeling it.
So what we've done is really move it to the basis on which we actually model it ourselves.
So just to be clear, you're still paying that on the debt, but because you're funding it through corporate, the impact to shareholders is sort of the way that you've described it?
Yes, because it. As I said, generally, we'll shift it to corporate. So we're just not taking. We're not preventing effectively double counting the amortization now and then in the future when we actually amortize it. So there's only a couple of concessions. The two key ones there are, the main one is Eastern Distributor, to be honest, if you look out over the next couple of years. And just remind me the second one.
Tax.
Oh, tax, yes. Look, we, we put a pretty clear profile on tax, the different tax-paying groups. The main one to be watching for is obviously the consolidated tax entity, and we've said FY 2027 is when that begins. Obviously, it won't move to a full sort of corporate rate. It will gradually build up over time. And then Northwest Roads Group is the other one that currently is starting to just pay a little bit more tax. I think we've given reasonable transparency on the profile in terms of the quantum. Look, we'll take that on notice and think about whether we can do more to guide people on that.
And if I understand, the West Gate Tunnel additional costs haven't yet been reflected in that profile of the consolidated tax group?
No, they haven't.
Great. Well, that's all the questions we have time for today. Thank you very much for your questions and engagement. It now concludes our webcast, so thanks all online. We appreciate your time and attention.