While 60 per cent of its workers live within a 10-kilometre radius of the site, 95 per cent of them are forced to travel there by car.

While this would seem to defeat the purpose of attracting businesses to relocate away from the CBD and closer to their workforces, UWS Urban Research Centre director Phillip O'Neill says the park is not a failure.

``Norwest has been enormously successful,'' he said.

The failure, he said, was that the next big business park for western Sydney was not even on the horizon.

``The Norwest Business Park was a good idea but like all good ideas, its proponents weren't sure how good an idea it was going to be,'' Professor O'Neill said.

``With the arrival of the M2 it had good transport and good amenity and a location close to its workforce.

``But what's happened is the workforce has made the sensible decision to work at Norwest.''

He said the final ingredient that could have made Norwest a world's best practice industrial park, public transport, was missing.

``So we have the ridiculous situation where workers are forced to drive to work,'' he said.

Successive state governments over the past 20 years had failed to plan for and develop business parks, Professor O'Neill said.

``There's enormous need for the next business park and yet there isn't one ready to go. It would be very easy for governments to establish business parks integrated with sustainable public transport systems.

``We know that large firms can get cost advantages by relocating areas where there's a quality labour force.

``It happens all around the world except Sydney.''

Professor O'Neill said north-west Sydney had the capacity to have another business park yet in Sydney's growth sectors there were no plans for the development of a public transport base.

``There's an alarming absence of public transport infrastructure,'' he said.

``There can only be one outcome of this neglect, which is an increase in car-based commuting through already congested transport corridors.''