Victoria’s State Budget is next Tuesday. Pre-budget announcements have included a package of bus upgrades this week, and last week they announced train service upgrades on half a dozen suburban rail lines (plus the Shepparton V/Line service).
This is great – it’s not fixing everything, but it continues the trend of relatively affordable upgrades that resolve the longest (30 and 40 minute) gaps between services around the Metro network.
To see the difference, let’s compare train frequencies over about ten years; from 2016 to how they’ll look next year after these upgrades are delivered.
I’ve focused on outside peak times, partly because peak is very complicated, and partly because the wait times are mostly short anyway. Outside peak is where the long waits happen.
2016
| Corridor or line | Weekday inter-peak | Weekday evening | Sat daytime | Sat evening | Sun morning | Sun daytime | Sun evening |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newport (Werribee/Williamstown) | 20 | 20 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 20 | 30 |
| Sunbury | 20# | 30 | 20# | 30 | 40 | 20# | 30 |
| Craigieburn | 20 | 30 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 20 | 30 |
| Upfield | 20 | 30 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 20 | 30 |
| Mernda | 20 | 30 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 20 | 30 |
| Hurstbridge | 20# | 30# | 20# | 30 | 40 | 20# | 30 |
| Ringwood (Lilydale/Belgrave) | 15* (30) | 30 | 10 (20) | 30 | 30 | 10 (20) | 30 |
| Alamein | 15 | 30 | 20 | 30 | 30 | 20 | 30 |
| Glen Waverley | 15 | 30 | 20 | 30 | 30 | 20 | 30 |
| Dandenong (Cranbourne/Pakenham) | 10 (20) | 30 | 10 (20) | 30 | 30 | 10 (20) | 30 |
| Frankston | 10 | 30 | 10 | 30 | 30 | 10 | 30 |
| Sandringham | 15 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 40 | 20 | 20 |
Notes:
- “Evening” here is looking at about 10pm. Sunday morning is 8am (on many lines the frequency improves at about 10am). Sat/Sun daytime is 10am-7pm.
- Green is for 15 minutes or less, white is 20, yellow is above (eg 30+). There was a lot of yellow ten years ago.
- #Half as frequent on the outer ends of some lines: Eltham to Hurstbridge, and Watergardens to Sunbury
- For some lines I’ve measured the combined frequency – this is where those trains serve a combined corridor for most of their trip. So this includes Ringwood, Dandenong, Newport, but not Clifton Hill. Frequency beyond is shown in parenthesis. The colour is for the combined corridor.
As you can see, back in 2016 across most of the network the old 20-30 minute frequencies (basically unchanged since the 1990s) dominated, especially in the western and northern suburbs, with many 40 on Sundays, a hangover from the 1978 service cuts.
Some of the longer lines had improved to 10 minutes in the early 2010s. Some stations were still in the middle at 15 minutes on weekdays, thanks to upgrades in the 1990s (Sandringham) or even 1970s (Glen Waverley, and also Belgrave and Lilydale weekdays).
How will it look after the newly announced changes have been completed? Not perfect, but a lot better.
2027
| Corridor or line | Weekday inter-peak | Weekday evening | Sat daytime | Sat evening | Sun morning | Sun daytime | Sun evening |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newport (Werribee/Williamstown) | 10* (20) | 20 | 10 (20) | 20 | 20 | 10 (20) | 20 |
| Sunbury | 10# | 20^ | 10# | 20^ | 20^ | 10# | 20^ |
| Craigieburn | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| Upfield | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| Mernda | 20 | 30 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| Hurstbridge | 20# | 30# | 20# | 20# | 20# | 20# | 20# |
| Ringwood (Lilydale/Belgrave) | 15* (30) | 10 (20) | 10 (20) | 30 | 30 | 10 (20) | 30 |
| Alamein | 15 | 20 | 20 | 30 | 30 | 20 | 30 |
| Glen Waverley | 15 | 20 | 20 | 30 | 30 | 20 | 30 |
| Dandenong (Cranbourne/Pakenham) | 10 (20) | 10 (20) | 10 (20) | 10 (20) | 10 (20) | 10 (20) | 10 (20) |
| Frankston | 10 | 20 | 10 | 20 | 20 | 10 | 20 |
| Sandringham | 10 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 40 | 20 | 20 |
- Same notes as above apply
- *Some additional express trains
- ^Additional trains City to West Footscray
- Bold highlights changes between 2016 and 2027
A bit more green, but just as importantly, the yellow is steadily disappearing.
It’s great to see movement on this. By next year almost all the 40 minute gaps will have been removed, and so will many of the 30 minute gaps – though there will be some left.
It’s not the kind of sweeping “Every 10 minutes” change that many of us would like to see, but it’s definitely progress.
After years of focus on infrastructure, it’s great to see more upgrades to service frequency, which makes it easier for more people to choose public transport more often.
Let’s hope they keep up the momentum.
- If you spot any errors in the tables above, please leave a comment!
- I’m trying a new way of doing tables in the blog. Also let me know any display problems.
- Things are not so great on V/Line this week
- Update 3/5/2026: a little bird tells me coming upgrades to the Sandringham line will fix the 40 minute Sunday morning gaps. Last year the government said this was not included; it seems they’ve seen sense.
18 replies on “Progress on train frequencies”
Stuff-all improvement on the Sandy line. Boo!
roger, a change from a 15 minute off peak daytime service on the Sandy line to a 10 minute service is significant, and very welcome.
Daniel, the graphs make details very clear.
30 minutes on a Saturday evening to Ringwood is still quite dreadful. Why has this been overlooked?
I don’t think it’s really valid to count Werribee and Williamstown together like the other corridors.
Newport is only โ of the way to Werribee, a much lower shared proportion than the other lines, so it’s only a small handful of inner suburbs that see those 10 minute frequencies.
Good comparison. I’d also have included Melton and Geelong (at least to Wyndham Vale) on as these are effectively metropolitan these days despite diesel propulsion.
Both have made big strides with Geelong 20 min most of the week but Melton still needing work on weekends to fix its 40 min frequency. But both need earlier weekend am trips and some extra evening trips to close their maximum wait to 20 min.
Some welcome changes for heavy rail.
I would support the next big change for rail being a move to a weekend timetable with both Saturday and Sunday having the same services – perhaps with some additional services on Saturday nights.
On a separate matter, Daniel, any insight into how footy fans on the Dandenong lines heading to the MCG are adjusting now that we’re a good month or so into the footy season?
Burnley group upgrades are huge if they can stick, even if it’s just for weekdays.
If I had the choice for improving Sandringham weekday off-peak (currently 15) or weekends (currently 20) I think I’d choose the latter. But connecting through to Werribee means they need to change away from 15, so it’s not surprising that’s the next change.
@Hamish M, can only hope this is in the next tranche of upgrades.
@Benjamin, yes I can see where you’re coming from here. By my count most trains (except Werribee weekends/evenings) serve slightly more non-CBD stations on the trunk between City and Newport, but certainly a lot of stations are on the less frequent 20 minute service.
@Peter, good point on Melton and Wyndham Vale. I get the impression that the Geelong line does better for weekday off-peak patronage than Melton, probably thanks to more stations benefitting from the Geelong line 20 minute service.
@Tim, from what I’ve seen at Caufield and Malvern, most people heading to the MCG/sports precinct are still strongly preferring to use Richmond, not Town Hall. Maybe it’ll change a bit once the Town Hall Fed Square exit opens.
Iโm curious as to why the Burnley Group is still seeing some of the worst frequencies on the network at certain times. Maybe Iโm cynical, but it seems like itโs due to mainly political reasons, given that Lilydale is completely LX free.
Still a number of anomalies in the Geelong timetable – e.g. better frequency for longer on weekends than weeknights, even for Tarneit and Wyndham Vale. I there an argument that there needs to be more off-peak services terminating at Wyndham Vale? On the Geelong side, North Shore went to the 20-minute timetable but Marshall and Waurn Ponds are still waiting on weekdays. (As are Corio and Little River, maybe less argument there – but of course if you ever wanted to travel between Little River and Corio your options are very limited!) Given Geelong effectively has an urban spine between Lara and Waurn Ponds (and people do use it to travel to central Geelong) is there also an argument for shuttles on the spine, and could such ideas mean more expresses between central Geelong and Southern Cross, which can somewhat reduce the journey time (and the Warrnambool trains effectively provide that service a few times a day)?
Lilydale is still stuck with 20-minute headways because they still refuse to duplicate the track between there and Mooroolbark, and it’s a 12-minute return trip between those stations. With no late running, they could achieve 15-minute headways, but clearly they assume there’ll be so many stuff-ups that half the trains will end up late and will attract monetary penalties.
@Phillip – there’s a small window between 4pm & 5:30pm where there is a 15 min service to/from Lilydale in both directions, it’s certainly possible.
The interaction with the Belgrave branch and also the Alamein shuttles overly complicate things. And then there’s the express running on weekdays until midday.
My suggestion for a new interpeak timetable would be:
– 10 min limited express service to Ringwood (Richmond, Glenferrie, Camberwell, Union, Box Hill, Blackburn then all stations) with 10 min all stations services to Camberwell
– 20 min all stations services to Alamein & Blackburn, a service cut justified based on patronage for these stations
– 20 min services to Belgrave & Lilydale (already possible weekend daytime, no duplication required)
– Glen Waverley afternoon/PM peak/evening services removed from City Loop, 15 min timetable direct to Flinders St
Interpeak express trains could use the centre express track either between Box Hill & Camberwell or Camberwell & Burnley depending on direction.
As for why they didn’t improve it yet? I’d say they don’t have the driver pool currently beyond picking either weeknights or weekends. A lack of planning alongside the level xing removal program.
One would hope we will see some further upgrades for both the Burnley & Clifton Hill groups in coming years as additional drivers are trained.
Arguably though they should have addressed weekend evenings first as there is already a 15 min service to Ringwood until 10pm on weeknights.
Some great tables Daniel.
I’d probably add in an additional column “Weekday early evening” for between 8pm & 10pm (& rename the other one “Weekday late evening”)
Progressively in the 2010s several lines were upgraded between 7:30pm & 10pm on weeknights but not until last service.
By 2016:
– Ringwood every 15 mins until 10pm weeknights
– Frankston every 20 mins until 10pm weeknights
– Dandenong/Pakenham/Cranbourne every 20 mins until 10:30pm weeknights (later upgraded to 10 mins to Dandenong until 9:30pm in August 2018)
– Werrribee/Williamstown shuttles every 20 mins until 10pm weeknights (& not midnight as shown in your table)
– Eltham every 20-25 mins until 10pm (uneven due to South Morang Line offsets & single track sections)
– Sandringham every 20 mins until midnight (dating back to the 1992 upgrades)
Melbourne on Transit blog has an excellent graphic showing these service levels as at 2019 on this blog post – https://melbourneontransit.blogspot.com/2019/04/timetable-tuesday-20-weeknights-on.html
20 min weeknight services were later extended until midnight to Dandenong, Pakenham, Cranbourne, Frankston, Werribee & Williamstown in January 2021, with the latter three also gaining 20 min service on weekend evenings.
A correction is also needed for Newport/Werribee/Williamstown weekdays interpeak.
In 2016 Newport had a 10 min weekday interpeak service, dating back to May 2011*.
Back then this compromised of Werribee & Williamstown trains off-set 10 mins apart, with the unpopular interpeak Laverton – Newport shuttles
These shuttles were introduced in May 2011, in conjunction with interpeak & weeknight Werribee services being removed from the City Loop, and the infamous 22 peak headways (squeezing in additional Geelong trains through Newport at the time).
In January 2017 Metro removed the interpeak Laverton shuttles between 9:30am & 11am, before August 2017 saw the rest of the shuttles extended to Flinders St. This allowed the interpeak services from Werribee to run limited express Newport – Footscray – North Melbourne.
Note that the 10 min service from Newport from 10am to 7pm weekends only began in January 2021. Prior to that, Williamstown services ran as shuttles and weekend Werribee (& Frankston) trains still travelled via the City Loop.
* – a misguided timetable from July 2009 introduced express route Werribee services in the interpeak, but these were offset at a 4-16 min pattern between Newport & the City.
Double-checked when Metro improved the Burnley & Clifton Hill Groups on Sunday evenings from 40 mins to 30 mins – April 2012. This also corrected an outdated anomaly of the 11:20pm/11:30pm Sunday finish on the Burnley Group lines.
This was done alongside South Morang extension opening, new stations at Lynbrook & Cardinia Rd PLUS the 10 min weekend daytime uplifts for Frankston, Dandenong & Ringwood.
They also reversed the Northern Group on weekends to run clockwise, partly to relieve crowding after games at Marvel.
A very ambitious timetable update indeed!
This was followed up by Sunbury electrification opening in November 2012.
The Mernda and Hurstbridge weekday evenings at 30 min still puzzles me in the new plans. What is stopping it getting upgraded ? Is it being held back for some reason related to Macleod LX removal or NE link roadworks nearby ? It’s not a lack of train sets and drivers exist if roster changes are made.
@Craig, it’s amazing to think the Bayside lines switched to 30 minute frequencies on Sunday nights in 2000, and it took until 2012 for the former Hillside lines to be upgraded.
@Tommo, there are no technical barriers to further improvements. Clearly if these lines can run every 20 minutes for most of the week, they can also do so on weekday evenings. It’s all about the money.
@Daniel. Yes it’s just about the money as always isn’t it. With the election coming you’d think they would finally step up to provide consistent services after all the works getting to this point. That it should have happened long ago is just poor form.