Inspired by Alon Levy’s quick-fire Bluesky threads full of transport ideas, here’s some quick-fire points from me:
These are some priorities for fixing on Victoria’s public transport network. I’m excluding anything already underway (such as bank card fare payment and Melbourne Airport Rail), and for the most part I’ve focused on system-wide issues rather than specific projects.
(I’ll number them so people can refer to them in the comments)
Metro
1. Fix train frequencies. For a priority, upgrade the 30/40 waits to 20 max. Govt funded this for Upfield/Craigieburn – need to get on with it for the others. Low cost, but big usability benefit.
2. Metro Night Network. Get it from 60 min frequency down to at least 30. If you’re spending all that money to have station staff, PSOs, other operational staff, might as well make it worthwhile.
(No, it’s not about capacity. It’s about an attractive usable service.)
3. Reform the stopping patterns, especially on the Lilydale/Belgrave group. 15+ different patterns is ridiculous.
4. Cut dwell times by trimming fat in the timetables. At some stations (especially in peak) the timings are downright excessive. Prahran to Windsor 3 minutes? Also ridiculous.
5. Rapid Running – it mostly works well on the bus routes that use it, so use it for Metro where possible – high frequency times/lines where a train can depart a bit early. Modify the performance regime to cope with this.
6. Single track duplication. It enables more frequency, but even without frequency upgrades, it helps cut snowballing delays
7. DDA compliance for more stations, especially interchanges. Priorities include Richmond, South Yarra, Caulfield. Caulfield needs something to improve interchange capacity anyway. A second concourse like North Melbourne would work.
8. Time to push ahead with investment to electrify out to Melton, Wyndham Vale and Wallan. Stop pretending V/Line works well as a suburban rail operator.
Trams
9. Traffic light priority, obviously
10. More tram lanes, but failing that, restrictions to force motor vehicles to turn off, so motorists cannot use tram corridors as through routes. Encourage them to drive somewhere else.
11. Higher frequencies at night, especially Sunday nights with its rotten 30 minute gaps.
12. Rapid running for trams, especially on high frequency corridors
13. Push ahead with DDA tram platform stops. The 2022 deadline has already passed.
14. But stop pretending that DDA tram platforms that cars can drive over are a good idea. They’re not. Build them so drivers are forced to stop.
15. More low floor trams, obviously. It’s 7 years until the 2032 deadline and there’s still hundreds in service
16. Get cameras working on the trams, to catch and fine motorists who illegally zoom past when they should stop, and those who illegally drive in tram lanes
17. CCTV inside too, on the B class at least, since they’ll be around for a while yet
18. Suburban tram extensions to the nearest rail station or major shopping centre. All pretty short, all would improve the viability of the outer ends of the lines.
I know they’re not going to get rid of the Free Tram Zone, so I’m not going to mention it. (Oops).
Buses
19. More on-road priority, obviously
20. More Rapid Running on high frequency routes, and more real-time info at stops to go with it.
21. Bus route reform to straighten out indirect slow confusing routes
22. Better frequency and operating hours, starting with running off-peak frequencies on weekends. Don’t leave most of the fleet sitting idle every weekend. (This includes regional town routes)
23. Focus the first tranche of better services on the busy routes into the major non-rail shopping centres like Chadstone. Plenty of travel demand. Serve it.
24. Bus/train co-ordination for low frequency routes/times. High frequency where possible as it makes the timetable co-ordination problem simply vanish.
25. Connection guarantee for the last bus of the day.
V/Line
26. Work out a way to move to a 30/60 minute network, not 40. 40 isn’t clockface, isn’t memorable. Yeah it’s all tied into 5/10/20 on the Metro network, but there aren’t that many interactions, and 30/60 should be able to made to work with 10.
27. …and then move towards at least a 30 minute train service to the major regional centres, and 60 or 120 beyond, with more frequent coach connections too. Make it easier to get to anywhere in the state.
28. Priority would be Albury line service expansion. The service is at capacity. This’ll need more standard gauge trains.
29. Catering on trains has almost all gone. Find a way to do it on-board without the massive buffet modules that take so much capacity. Food cart perhaps? Vending machines?
30. Platform extensions to cope with at least 6 car trains everywhere. Better for longer trains, without safety issues like the recent Pyramid station incident.
31. VLocities are fine, but a 20+ year old design. Time to look for something newer. An electrification plan wouldn’t go astray.
32. Related: stop pretending 3+3 cars is a sensible consist for almost the entire train fleet. Conductors can’t even walk along the train. Yeah some of it is tied to train maintenance capacity. So fix it, or work around it. With patronage growth, more trains need to be 6 cars at more times.
33. More mobile signal boosters so people can stay connected and productive on the journey
Active transport
34. Put in way more cycle parking at stations, with better security
35. More protected bike lanes, especially within 5km of railway stations
36. A concerted effort to provide higher quality walking environments, including keeping footpaths clear of obstructions, especially for routes within 1km of stations and other major public transport stops.
37. Also better traffic light programming for pedestrians around public transport stops
38. Road law reform to make intersection give way laws more consistent, less confusing, so drivers have to give way to pedestrians when turning out of a street, just like they do now with cross traffic, and when exiting driveways.
Fares
39. Weekly day cap for fares. Get rid of Weekly Passes. They’re confusing and almost nobody uses them (Overall Pass usage dropped three quarters between 2019 and 2022), and it’s even more important with credit card fare payment coming soon.
40. Provide a short distance fare. Perhaps up to 3-4km. The current almost-flat-fare is all very well, but stinging people $5.50 to travel a few stops on the tram is not justified. There was such a fare prior to 2004.
41. Standardise the compensation scheme. Make it automatic. Target it at the lines that are disrupted, not some arbitrary network-wide average.
42. If the Early bird fare is staying, make it multi-modal, rather than encouraging people to fill up the station car parks early in the morning.
43. They really need to do something about the low level of fare compliance on buses – if not to fix it, then at least understand it better. 95% compliance? Not on any bus I’ve been on recently.
Other stuff
44. SRL: it’s 7km as the crow flies from Southland to Clayton. Closer to 9km along the route. They really must include provision for an extra station or two. Moorabbin East near Warrigal Road could be a great urban renewal zone. If they don’t include provision, it’ll be near-impossible to add later.
45. Improve the accuracy of real-time and disruption info on apps. Planned disruption info can be nicely filtered on the Metro web site, but PTV’s apps just treat everything as equal – from the irrelevant to the critical.
(Great to see recent real-time info improvements)
46. Noise detection so that drivers of intentionally excessively noisy cars and motorbikes can be penalised. They often say cities aren’t noisy; cars are noisy, and the people who deliberately have noisy vehicles are some of the worst contributors to it.
47. Moratorium on further urban freeways. Melbourne has already got more than most cities of our size, and by encouraging more people to drive, they’re not ultimately helping cut traffic congestion.
48. Enforcement of existing rules such as Rule 128, not blocking intersections. This one plays havoc with CBD trams (and buses to an extent) every day.
That’s my list. I appreciate some are easier said than done.
Feedback? Objections? Questions? Other suggestions? Leave a comment!
27 replies on “Fixing the network: the long list”
The Glen Waverley line has bus replacements every night from October 5 to October 15 (except one night in the middle). Maybe a little more explanation about what they’re actually doing rather than ‘maintenance & renewal works for 10 nights of disruptions in 11 days.
Real time tracking for bus replacements would make a huge difference, especially with poor frequencies. Nobody wants to rush to a replacement bus stop to face an indefinite wait.
Why do they bother with two buses leaving Richmond at the same time every 30 minutes so that one bus can save a few minutes late at night skipping a few stations? If there’s no major events on, run one bus every 20 minutes and synchronise them properly with Frankston / Sandringham trains (which shouldn’t be running parallel to each other from Flinders St to South Yarra, but that’s another can of worms).
Fare compliance on trams isn’t much better than on buses in my experience. I wonder what impact a short distance fare would have.
Buses: Run more services until midnight and actually mandate the minimum standard, with the latter also increased to 10PM instead of 9PM. Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the MOTC bus reform, of which was all but abandoned circa 2010.
As for Ringwood line reform I want to see the following stopping patterns:
1. “Stopping all stations except Richmond” replaced with express Camberwell to Richmond, with Alamein services running to the city full-time.
2. SAS to Blackburn, express to Box Hill, Camberwell, Richmond, with certain trains stopping at Glenferrie during uni times. Expresses supplemented with Blackburn stoppers.
3. More expresses from Ringwood to Blackburn to make trains more competitive with cars. The 2009 up Belgrave is the GOAT, and you can pry it from my dead hands.
Increase the line speed between Box Hill and the city like the centre track has had since it was upgraded way back in 2001. 65 km/h is too slow, especially for an express train. It is a joke that trains have to run as slow as 55 km/h even on straight sections of track like Burnley to East Richmond.
Network-wide: Abolish Sunday timetables. We are not in the 1950s, Saturdays and Sundays are exactly the same yet Sunday gets significantly less or even no services whatsoever.
Nice list!
A few things I’d add around resilience/reliability:
– Add turnbacks at more stations, e.g. Dandenong-Westall is a long stretch without any.
– More sections of bidirectional track
– Stop terminating regional trains at East Pakenham if you could terminate at Westall, Caulfield, etc. instead
And a few things around V/Line comms:
– “Realtime” disruption alerts shouldn’t take over 30 mins to publish
– Give the V/Line customer service employees at Southern Cross mics for the PA like Metro does. Especially on platforms 15 & 16 where there’s often multiple trains on the same platform, which the PIDs aren’t capable of showing.
– Fix the sync issue with PIDs on Vlocities. Been on many trips where they’re permanently one station ahead of the train.
Trains: Give more attention to modal transfers by numbering station entries and identfying them individually and properly in published GPS data.
Other stuff: Transport Victoria must give more focus to treating all modes of PT like an integrated network.
Excellent list. So many of these are very low cost – or even no cost.
Wholeheartedly agree with 3, 18, 21 and 44. And further to 46, how about a variable vehicle registration regime. The proliferation of enormous passenger vehicles is reducing safety, reducing convenience for other road users and increasing wear and tear on roads. Anything bigger than, say, a Ford Ranger, is unnecessary and should be paying significantly more to use roads than a Toyota Yaris.
Agree with Heihachi_73 about simply having weekend timetables, not separate Sat & Sun arrangements.
Trains: SRL Phase 2 should include a station at Northland. It’s a major public transport interchange but served only by bus at the moment.
Buses: The whole point of the Smartbus network was to create a network, but of the three bus lines that cross the Upfield line, only one intersects with a station. The 901 should be redirected to run via Upfield station and the 902 should either be redirected to run via Gowrie station or Campbellfield station should be rebuilt to intersect with that bus. The 901 in particular should be a priority, to create a better public transport connection to Northern Hospital.
Active Transport: Better provision of the ability to take bicycles on public transport. Increase the number of bus routes that have bike racks on the buses (particularly bus routes serving La Trobe, Monash, etc), for a relatively cheap fix here, and look at the possibility of doing this for trams as well, especially the routes that cover areas poorly served by trains.
Great overall points and pretty much agree with everything. Few things I’d add around DDA accessibility, as well as the major interchanges you’ve listed I think, whether it be for tram stops or train stations, any stop near an institution of significance should be a priority for DDA upgrades.
You’ve already listed a lot of the main ones (e.g. Richmond for MCG as much as it’s interchange importance), but I’d add in any University, Tafe and Hospital stop too. So that should include prioritising Glenferrie for Swinburne University, the Route 75 low-floor trams plus stop upgrades for Deakin University Burwood, and probably other’s I can’t think of off the top of my head.
Also, to fast track tram DDA compliance across the wider network rationalise what fleet runs where, for example I live within wheeling distance of Sydney Rd – which mainly runs low floor trams without any accessible stops. Until they are able to upgrade the stops in the medium-long term, in the short term perhaps these low-floor trams should run on another route that already has some accessible stops (such as the aformentioned route 75 on Burwood Hwy).
On pt. 22, before we even get that far, please, simplify the existing service patterns on weekends.
Same patterns on Saturday and Sunday PLEASE. It is not 1995 anymore, church going rates are super low, most shops are open both days, and people don’t really consider Sunday any more a “rest” day than Saturday now. No more weekend-specific route changes please, I used to take busses to Emerald and the fact that some bus stops operate only on weekends (or even just Sundays!!!) and others ONLY on weekdays is batty. The route change doesn’t even seem to have any logical reason behind it.
Re: Extending item 8, perhaps. Turn V-Line trains into “plug-in hybrids” that can run off the overhead line where present. It would not only save fuel, use less diesel but reduce emissions, especially inside Southern Cross station.
It would be a first step to fully electrifying the network.
Thoughts on stations that have multiple exits but usually have them closed?
See this at Richmond, but also places like eg. Clayton have exits at the end of the platforms but are closed, perhaps because they aren’t accessible. Combined with the crappy accessibility internally if you’re at the front of the train you have to walk all the way to the middle, then back again if you wanted to go that direction.
Many stations, particularly newer ones also have garbage shelter. Ringwood is the poster child, with a roof so high they had to install a special box for staff to stand so they’re protected from the elements.
Just a lot of infra built with little thought given to being “nice” to be around.
*Stopping all stations except East Richmond. Don’t know how I forgot the East part, maybe it’s because my train doesn’t stop there! Or maybe it’s because of that laughable proposal where Burnley group trains actually were going to skip Richmond.
Other stuff: Pedestrian crossing lights should go green when the car lights go green. Why do pedestrians have to apply to cross the road?
I would definitely add removing the train horns from departure. Especially at City Loop stations it’s so incredibly loud – and if getting the lift down to platform 4 at Melb Central you can’t avoid being next to it. Bad for everyone, but especially tough on those with sleeping babies. It can’t be in a safe hearing range.
If London and Sydney can do without a horn blast to depart, so can Melbourne.
Second vote is to remove the useless control centre announcements from trains. Announcements only for imminent issues about current service, not whatever they feel like discussing that day.
I would extend concession fares to postgraduates and international students. With concession fares for postgraduates, if you are on Centrelink payments (i.e. JobSeeker), you are only eligible while you have a health care card, but once you lose access to the health care card, you have to pay full fare (despite limited income), and the same should also apply to international students. It is 2025 and often postgraduate study is a must, and since about half of all students are postgraduates, it is high time that postgraduates can get a card entitling them to concession fares instead of the current discrimination they suffer in which they have to pay full fare.
With buses, extend all buses to at least 10pm if not being able to be extended to 1am. If trains can run to 1am, then so should buses. It is currently unfair that buses finish at 9pm despite many people working night shift. We are supposed to be a 24-hour city, so I think we need a bus network that meets that need instead of people having to drive to the station because there are no buses. And speaking of buses, have Night Network run on Thursday is a necessity, especially as people may have classes on Thursday night, as well as Thursday being a common night for social events at university. In addition, with buses, we need at least a 20 minute frequency all day.
With the impending opening of the Metro Tunnel, we could use the opening of the Metro Tunnel as a pretext to introduce widespread changes to the bus network, including more buses more often, especially in Melbourne’s west, which is one of the most car dependent areas in Melbourne (as well as being a low socio-economic area).
How about a few seats on the new stations. Preston has seats for just four (4) people and there is a 20 minute wait between trains for most of the day. The station is very busy being close to Preston Market, Melbourne Polytechnic, Preston High school and a busy shopping strip.
With buses, the bus. Number should be visible from all four sides of the bus not just the front. People approach buses from all sides and if the buses are bunched up, who knows which service that bus that just left is.
Also, stop covering up the windows with advertising on both trams and buses. People like to see out to make sure their stop is arriving.
Copy Seoul’s approach to numbering train lines, stations and station exits.
It’s very unhelpful for tourists to have to navigate to a destination solely by end of route station name. For example, a journey to Caulfield could see you take a train from Flinders St that goes to Pakenham, Cranbourne, Oakleigh, Huntingdale… etc. All of those words may be unfamiliar and looking them all up on the board at somewhere like Flinders St can be confusing. Number the train lines so that it is, eg. “Line 4 towards Pakenham”. Just give every line a number.
Giving stations numbers that relate to their line number would be easy too although it’s not essential. Seoul does it but they are not used a lot as station names are all written in 2-4 different languages.
Numbering station exits would be easy and is a no-brainer to me. In Seoul, everyone navigates by station exit numbers. Businesses advertise their location by the number. It’s in directions from navigation apps. I spent a lot of years commuting to Huntingdale station and had to tell visitors to, eg. walk down the ramp from the platform, turn left then right and walk up the ramp, to exit. It would’ve been much easier to just say “use exit 3”. The exit numbers don’t even need to be logical, it wouldn’t matter if exit 3 and 5 are near eachother. Seoul even has some exits that are numbered like “3b” where another has been added, that’s fine if really necessary. Exit numbers could be added to the whole network virtually overnight, it just needs a plan and some stickers!
Station toilets. They didn’t put any in the fancy new replacement station at North Williamstown and they’re proposing not to put any in the fancy new replacement station at Spotswood. Ridiculous.
Control centre announcements on trains. Too often these are completely unintelligible, presumably because the amplification/loudspeaker equipment is poorly (perhaps never) maintained. While I hate to exclude the app-averse, it could be feasible to augment these announcements with an alert on the PTV app (potentially filtered by location).
Why each city loop trains stops for 5 minutes on Flinders station? It really adds to the travel time.
Can this be removed?
Agree with Jeremy about elimination of using train horns upon departure. Unnecessary and very loud if the train is an Xtrapolis.
Definitely agree with Scott about a more navigable system, using line numbers and station exit numbers.
For those who have been to Melbourne Central recently, there are now exit numbers when it comes to the escalators, mostly due to State Library and Melbourne Central sharing the same area. I think the entry to State Library from Melbourne Central is Exit 1. You can see the exit numbers from the platforms at Melbourne Central, although it is yet to be seen if it will also be done at State Library.
In regards to Vline, electrification, particularly of the Geelong line should have been done years ago, but I could see a few issues holding it back.
The Geelong south tunnel is probably a big impediment as I doubt they could have overhead wire installed in it as its currently a tight fit with the Vlocities. I think they have to eventually replace the tunnel as it also probably limits the loading gauge.
Yes they could possibly run on battery in the tunnel, but I could see the next Vline train possibly being double decker, so a new tunnel might help increase the size of the rolling stock. If it does get electrified it will use 25kv AC on Vline as it should have significant cost savings over 1.5kv DC.
Some great ideas in the comments, keep them coming!
@Nick, there is now some real-time tracking of replacement buses. Not sure if it’s still being trialled, as they don’t seem to be promoting it widely.
If you go to the Metro web site, then to Stations, and find the page for your station, you’ll see it at times when buses are running.
eg https://www.metrotrains.com.au/stations/syndal/
@Dan S, they seem to be on a trajectory of removing turnbacks and other junctions, as they think it introduces potential reliability problems. eg the Caulfield changes that removed the ability of Frankston and Dandenong trains to switch between their lines.
There does seem to have been movement recently on V/Line real-time info being included into GTFS-Realtime, so it can be added into various apps, so hopefully this is a good sign.
@Michael (and others) – Caulfield station recently got station exit numbers.
@Loki, Northland is a fair way from the SRL North route near LaTrobe Uni. Just as with Chadstone, there would be benefits, but it’d be a big diversion.
@Jordan, on Clayton specifically, you’d really hope that the SRL connection will add some options for exiting passengers.
@jon, yeah there’s so many improvements they could make to traffic light programming for pedestrians!
@Jeremy, there’s actually been an increase in horn volumes recently. Ironically complaints about the noise led authorities to review it and they discovered they didn’t comply – they were too quiet :-/
But yeah you’d think with fewer and fewer level crossings, they can find a way to reduce the locations where they’re required.
@indigohex, it’s just amazing how bad the level of service is on some bus routes.
@Denise, 4 seats is ridiculous! 30-40 minute gaps in the evenings and on Sunday mornings.
@KMM, great idea. Little stuff like route indicators on all sides would be trivially cheap to build into the standard new bus requirements.
@Paul, yes, the Geelong tunnel is probably an issue, given electrification would really need to include the Geelong area stations on the south side.
I’d love for my bus route to start running before 7:30AM and finish later than 7PM… Maybe even more than once an hour on weekends (though Sunday services were recently added for the first time ever). Better than half-hour evening frequencies on all the Burnley group would also be pretty helpful.
In addition to my post a couple of weeks ago on exit numbers at Melbourne Central, I was doing extra work this past Sunday and on my way home, I noticed exit numbers at Flinders Street as well (Exit 1 I believe is the ones under the clocks out to the corner of Flinders Street and Swanston Street). There is a possibility that these exit numbers will also be introduced at other City Loop stations in the lead up to the opening of the Metro Tunnel in early December.
On the information front:
Pdf tram timetables** that are NOT 100 pages long because, absurdly, they –
– list every stop
– have separate tables for every public holiday
That’s a lot of scrolling to find basic information!
** Yes, some people do like to have a view of the whole timetable for future reference, not just “next service” information in the web browser.
I would say a big thing to increase bus services with NO extra cost would be to depot ‘D’ services like how trams do. It won’t work everywhere but a good example would be how the last and first services of the day of the 471, 432 and 431 follow the 472 bus route back to their depot. Also the 472 busses that finish when the service frequency reduces in the evenings run all the way back to the depot Not in service following it’s own route!
Another big thing would be the spacing out of services so that they don’t all come at the same time. This happens with trams, trains and busses but an extreme example is how the 232 and 903 along Millers rd come every half an hour on weekends but come within 5 minutes of each other. Even when the 411 comes it still almost comes at the same time as the others!