The Monthly Average Patronage By Day Type And Mode data was updated to include up to June 2024, and I thought I’d look at how V/Line is doing, given the fare cap introduced on 31st March 2023.
Here’s the chart, with weekends highlighted, as I’ll talk about them a bit more below.
The overall pattern should be familiar by now. Patronage plummeted in early 2020 as the pandemic took hold, and after a false start in 2021, finally started coming back in 2022.
Like other modes, Mondays are quieter than the other weekdays. A regular pattern has emerged: many Melbourne CBD office workers travel in part of the week, with midweek journeys being the most popular.
You can also see a jump in 2023 when the fare cut took effect, bringing V/Line patronage back up to 2019 levels on most weekdays.
Weekends are surging
What’s particularly noticeable is the weekend patronage growth, which is way above 2019 levels.
The fare cap means a maximum $10.60 fare on weekdays… but on weekends it’s even lower, currently $7.20.
There have been regular cases of overcrowding on some services since the fare cap, and anecdotally this is worst on weekends. I assume this is because both city and country people have more time to make recreational journeys – and when services run far less frequently than on weekdays (especially compared to commuter peaks).
Comparing 2019 weekend V/Line patronage to 2023-24, what do we see?
(To use the most recent pre-pandemic data, this compares late 2019 to late 2023, and early 2019 to early 2024. Sorry, I tried to make this chart interactive but it refused to work.)
August 2023 is the exception here – probably due to extensive line closures for upgrade and construction works (including the “Westgate Tunnel”) in June, July and August 2023. I’m not sure how July did so well – possibly the closures were partially offset by extra journeys due to school holidays.
In other months there was strong growth.
EDIT: Caveat: Documentation for the data set says: From 2021 onwards, patronage data for regional trains include non-myki patronage (e.g. paper ticket counts). Prior to this, patronage does not include non-myki patronage. So some of the growth is attributable to a change in the methodology.
Saturdays in January 2024 (also school holidays) were a whopping 67.2% busier than January 2019. Wow. (And 2019 wasn’t an outlier – 2018, 2020 and 2023 had similar figures. Perhaps 2024 was an outlier due to big events?)
But other months are also up 25% or more.
It’s great that people are seeing more of Victoria, and getting there by train. But it’s not so great if the trains are regularly packed – and it may be a barrier to further patronage growth.
V/Line has scheduled a few extra services where they can, made booking mandatory on some long distance services, and there’s investment in train maintenance facilities that will help.
But it’s ultimately up to the State Government to provide further investment to boost the infrastructure, fleet and services.
PTUA members can hear more from the horse’s mouth: V/Line CEO Matt Carrick will be presenting to the PTUA’s Annual General Meeting on 14th November. In the context of unprecedented growth, should be really interesting.
UPDATE: Just a few hours after I posted this, the Victorian Government announced extra Geelong and Warrnambool line trains to commence in December, including Geelong line trains every 20 minutes on weekends during the day.
5 replies on “V/Line patronage surging on weekends”
Very interesting, Daniel.
“anecdotally this is worst on weekends” – It’s a bit concerning that these data are not available to someone like yourself so you need to rely on hearsay. Does VLine not know how many people are on each service?
Service frequency is one cause, also worth considering is that a lot of weekend services only run with a single Vlocity three-carriage unit. Overcrowding could be substantially eased by adding the second unit, surely the patronage would justify this?
As an aside, it’s great to see people taking advantage of cheap weekend fares to visit regional towns. It’s definitely been a boost to tourism where I live.
It seems appropriate then that the government has just announced a new V/Line timetable for the Geelong/Warrnambool lines with a train every 20 minutes during the day and into the evening to Waurn Ponds, and a fourth Warrnambool train!
@Aaron, yes, they definitely need to be running more 6-car trains. And extending platforms that don’t cope with them. (Clarkefield is one; many on the Warrnambool line have that issue too.)
@Lachlan, yes, the extra services are great news!
For anybody who missed it:
https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/more-services-and-reliable-trains-across-victoria
Good riddance to waiting 40 minutes for a mostly-suburban, interurban train in the middle of the day. On that note, Geelong will actually have more trains running during weekend evening “peak” (6-9PM) than suburban trains to Belgrave and Lilydale.
FWIW the Belgrave and Lilydale lines drop from every 20 minutes (every 10 minutes combined from Ringwood to the city) to every 24-26 minutes after 6PM, transitioning to half-hourly by 7PM (trains from the city retain their higher frequency about an hour later than towards the city due to running the same trains in and out). Meanwhile, Geelong will apparently have 20-minute services until 9PM.