Bass Highway - Launceston to Devonport

The Department of State Growth is looking at improvements for the Bass Highway between Launceston and Devonport. The Bass Highway is a key freight, tourist and local route, linking the far north west of Tasmania with key ports and the National Highway.

We have developed a corridor strategy and implementation plan for identified priorities between the two existing dual carriage way sections at Hadspen, on the outskirts of greater Launceston, to Devonport on the Bass Highway.

Safety upgrades between Deloraine and Latrobe are a key priority. The outcomes of this work will be included in the Tasmanian Government’s Bass Highway 10 Year Action Plan.

We asked the public for their feedback to assist in identifying areas for improvement.

This feedback was used to inform the development of the corridor strategy and to prioritise projects.

Consultation closed on 14 August 2021 and we published a summary of feedback in the Consultation and Feedback Findings Summary.

The project identified the existing road environment and detail where sections of the highway are deficient for the existing and future road use between Launceston and Devonport. Identifying safety and efficiency upgrade opportunities and prioritising sections of the corridor for the upgrades were included in the implementation plan.

Project objectives were:

• improve safety outcomes for all users
• improved efficiency, reliability and resilience of road network
• support economic growth and development.

The Department has been progressively preparing corridor strategies for State roads across Tasmania to create consistency in how the State Road Network is planned and managed.

Corridor strategies make planning and investment decisions transparent to the community, councils and other key stakeholders. By reviewing a variety of issues the corridor strategy identifies:

• Objectives to improve and encourage better transport and economic opportunities in the North of Tasmania
• Performance of transport infrastructure in meeting the corridor specific objectives
• Current and future challenges in meeting corridor specific objectives
• Key transport demands likely to be placed on the corridor over the next 10 – 20 years
• High, medium and low priorities and actions to improve the corridor.

The process for developing the strategy is shown below.

The Project objectives are to:

• improve safety outcomes for all users
• improve efficiency, reliability, resilience of road network
• support economic growth and development.

Upgrades across the Bass Highway will improve productivity and efficiency on this key freight network, providing better connections between agricultural regions, ports, airports and other transport hubs.

The Bass Highway Corridor Strategy - Launceston to Devonport was published in 2023 and can be viewed online here.

Community consultation was completed in 2021.

In 2022 we published a summary of the feedback we received in our Consultation and Feedback Findings Summary, which can be found here.