UN 198: How fast is Melbourne really upgrading bus services?

The other day I found an interesting Age article from September 2010 discussing the pace at which the government was upgrading buses. It's so old that you don't need a subscription to read. 

The article is on what was considered the slow pace of bus reform. Advocates wanted faster bus network reform while the government was defending its record of adding service. 

What we have now but lacked then was the vantage point of history. Both the advocates and the government spokespeople (who then allowed their names to be published) turned out to be right.

Yes, more could have been done. But it's equally true that the Brumby government was achieving a lot with buses with a plan that not only existed but also got significant funding. It was arguably even a golden age for bus service additions if not for bus network reform (that was to come a little later).    

Feast or famine, one constant is the imperative for ministers and departments to defend their achievements. Let's look at the past quarter century to see how this government's Bus Plan record stacks up compared to its predecessors so we can more fairly evaluate progress.  

Bracks/Brumby government policy approach

First network reform. The Bracks/Brumby government had commissioned 16 local area bus network reviews (which you can read here) but implemented only a minority of recommendations. The reviews were basically the third (and least successful) prong of that government's bus reform agenda. This agenda was assembled under a plan called Meeting our Transport Challenges (or MOTC) that had been put together to respond to building (but then still underestimated) stresses on the transport system.  

While it had implemented some service upgrades in 2002, it was not until its seventh year, in 2006, that it got really serious about buses. To understand this take yourself back to the mid-noughties when premier Bracks was enjoying a big majority from 2002 and the Liberals were busy churning leaders. 

Buses were cheaper than and served more suburbs than rail. Rail franchising had failed in its first iteration with a big bail-out, funded by tolling EastLink, needed. V/Line to marginal regional seats got big upgrades but metropolitan train and tram basically stagnated under multiple rebrandings, with 1999 election promises of extensions substantially broken. The Melbourne 2030 plan raised and then dashed expectations with no accompanying funded public transport program to complement the intended higher population densities around stations. 

Much of this austerity was due to Labor's wish to be fiscally prudent to avoid comparisons with their embarrassing last time in office a decade prior. Borrowings for big projects were off the menu. Hence the off-books PPP arrangements for Southern Cross Station's construction and operation. Which proved a mistake in retrospect as it ceded control of a key station to faceless financiers. Although to be fair, Eastlink, another PPP at the time, was well regarded as a project.

Improved financial conditions did however permit some increase in direct government recurrent spending, even if not yet on megaprojects. Instead a good proportion in transport went on improved bus services, encouraged by advocacy from people like John Stanley in BusVic. This is opposite to this government's recent policy settings but more on that later. 

Returning to bus reform, the other two prongs mentioned in the 2006 Meeting Our Transport Challenges Plan were (i) minimum service standards for buses (as most routes then finished at 7pm and didn't run Sundays or even necessarily Saturday afternoons) and (ii) a network of premium service SmartBus routes (notably the orbitals but also routes that substituted for expected rail extensions to Doncaster and Rowville). 

Although a significant minority of bus routes remained without 7 day service and the SmartBus orbital program was not fully delivered, you could reasonably say that about 60-70% was by late 2010. That's a pretty good promise/delivery success rate with bus patronage rises closely tracking the service increases.

In contrast only 153 out of 711 bus review recommendations were delivered according to the 2010 Age article. This made the bus reviews the weakest of the three prongs of bus reform. That can be attributed to factors like complexity, perceived political risk and cost as implementation was largely unfunded.

Bus network reform done right can be more cost-effective than just adding trips on existing indirect routes. The reformed 2014 Brimbank and 2022 Yarra Valley networks are prime examples. While it was largely timetable rather than route based, the 2025 Manningham area service redistribution (which upgraded weekend service on four routes) also deserves high credit. In contrast some of the reform proposals in the 2006-2010 era reviews were expensive and retained some inefficient overlaps. Then new SmartBus orbital alignments (sections of which suffer low productivity and/or duplicate other routes) were also unchallenged.   

Another factor weakening government interest in buses was changing transport politics as rail meltdowns increasingly dominated the headlines. MOTC's weaknesses on rail made its period as the main transport plan for Melbourne short. Hence the Victorian Transport Plan of 2008, fed by work from Sir Rod Eddington. However that plan's increased investment in rail came too late for the Brumby government which was defeated in 2010 (as the reliability turnaround happened in 2012-2013).        

Baillieu/Napthine government policy approach

The subsequent, fiscally tighter, Baillieu/Napthine Coalition governments had other priorities, including restoring rail reliability, staffing stations with PSOs and making a descoped myki work. All three could be considered successful. However there was also scrimping through ill-advised decisions to reduce the scope of the Regional Rail Link (then under construction) and accept a cheap and nasty offer from Transdev to take over the franchise for Melbourne's longest and busiest bus routes.   

The Liberals (and the Andrews Labor government that succeeded it) added no new SmartBus routes. However the (effectively then bipartisan) approach to improved metropolitan rail frequency continued. The pace of bus network reform also picked up under new PTV CEO Ian Dobbs (back for his second sojourn after leading the PTC in the '90s).

An Englishman like many Melbourne transport leaders, the high-handed Dobbs would readily wield a felt pen to shorten or extend a route his staff had planned. He was also a radical, much less sensitive than Labor ministers (especially) to the political risks of network reform. The highlight of his (and PTV's) planning was reached on July 27 2014 which saw large reforms on the franchised Transdev bus network, reformed Brimbank bus routes and turn-up-and-go off-peak trains to Dandenong. This included an extra 3260 bus, 470 tram and 200 train services per week. While it had some shortcomings, no bigger integrated network and service reform has happened across Melbourne in the decade since. 

Transport minister Terry Mulder generally accepted bold service reform while his successor Jacinta Allan mostly recoiled, seeing more risk than reward. Dobbs was gone within six months of the new Labor government taking office. Proposed metropolitan rail and bus service reform was abandoned a few months later, with a decade of big infrastructure replacing the previous decade of service.   

Bracks/Brumby government record on bus service

How much bus service were we adding when political interest in it was at its peak? One answer was in the final paragraph of the 2010 Age article. That cited 13000 new services per week added in the four years since 2006. Or about 3250 weekly trips added per year. 

Note that these services could be anything from new Sunday trips on a 10km long local bus route to trips on an entirely new orbital route (which could be up to four hours long) as were added up to 2010. Or they could be just a ten minute ride on a short university shuttle (such as have been added since 2016).

Even though it's the preferred measurement metric in the political playground, counting trips is a terrible measure for anyone wishing to understand the real magnitude of a service increase. For that purpose it's better to look up annual service kilometres in the budget papers, like I did here.

By any measure the Brumby government added a lot of bus service. That grew patronage, with this continuing after that article was published. However certain network planning efficiency gains that could have been achieved then were not. However some were tackled under the following Baillieu/Napthine government, notably in the big 2014 reforms mentioned above.   

Andrews government record on bus service

Sticking to trips added, what have been more recent claims?

The government, which did largely honour its 2014 promises on bus services, told the Metropolitan Transport Forum that it has added "20 000 new bus services in 9 years" to 2023. That's about 2200 weekly trips added per year. Or about 1000 less than the 3200 per year average between 2006 and 2010. 

The disparity grows when you factor in Melbourne having a smaller population then and the longer average trip lengths due to the SmartBus roll-out up to 2010 versus the concentration on short university and Port Melbourne services more recently (eg 202, 235, 237 & 301 every 10 min).  

Measuring annual service kilometres added fixes that 'apples and oranges' problem to give a truer portrayal of bus service increases. For example around 8 million annual bus service kilometres were being added in 2007, 2008 and 2009 as opposed to around 2 or 3 million per year more recently according to budget papers. 

It also needs to be understood that service tended to be introduced at a faster pace in the first term of the Andrews government than later. For instance new bus networks in Geelong, Wyndham, Cranbourne and Plenty Valley plus university shuttles (which have a lot of short trips) were all running by late 2016. As you'll see in a moment the pace of bus service addition declined after then.    

Has the Bus Plan made a difference?

What about even more recently, in the era of Victoria's Bus Plan, ie since June 2021? In a written response to PAEC received 28 November 2024, then DTP Secretary Paul Younis said that 4600 bus services were added in that 3.5 year period. That's a rate of 1300 weekly trips added per year, even counting school services (see below). It also looks low compared to the 3260 weekly bus trips that one day's reform added in 2014. 

The evidence is that even if you have a plan it can't achieve much without a funded implementation strategy. As a result Victoria's Bus Plan has yet to deliver the step change in bus network service levels, directness and connectivity that was intended for it 1390 days ago.  

Conclusion

Victoria's Bus Plan notwithstanding, the decade-old Andrews/Allan government has yet to reach anywhere near the pace of bus service uplift achieved under the Brumby government. Or even its own 2015 - 2016 period when big new reformed bus networks (some planned under the previous government) commenced service. What five years ago I called the 'second stupor' for Melbourne buses has yet to be decisively broken. 

The pace of the sort of local tweak bus network reform that is possible without much money has also been slow. That presents many still untapped opportunities to cost-effectively get the most from our buses. 

If this government is serious that the time for buses is now it will need to get moving!  


See more Building Melbourne's Useful Network items here

Transport and Planning done differently: Introducing the Green Light People

Just  because little has been publicly heard from new DTP Secretary Jeroen Weimar since he took over two months ago does not mean he has been idle. Indeed it's been the contrary with much private work, the pre-requisite to public success, being completed. 

This work has included a strategic review, addressing questions such as how best to restore DTP's central role in the transport policy framework, reviving its public standing and reposition it to become, in premier Jacinta Allan's words, a builder not a blocker.

It's nothing short of a complete 'go revolution' for a department that's long needed something like it. 

A 'dep sec diet'? 

Having a staff of thousands to write business cases that too often failed to win state budget backing or draft strategies no one reads was the first bit of junk for Jeroen to jettison. 

Taking ideas from the Yanks but lingo from the Brits, Source Savings or Sod Off is said to be the survival priority for the department's deputy secretaries as the state struggles to find offsets for North East Link's $10 billion budget blowout.

Thus, to avoid potential embarrassment, the organisation chart listing dep secs was quietly deleted from the DTP website sometime between January 8 and February 25 2025 so the nosy public has to wait for the annual report (or lurk Linked-In) to see whose gone.

Each dep sec cut can buy about $400k in extra program funding from their employment costs saved. That excludes even more freed from supernumerary send-offs and time savings accruing from processes that have to be, by necessity, leaner. While those who remain may gain broader responsibilities this is partly mitigated by them having exponentially fewer meetings, as illustrated below. 

Sources close to the Secretary said that with 'razor gang' Silver Review staffing cuts looming, it was better to be on the front foot rather than effectively being under Treasury administration (as happened in the 1990s with the Transport Reform Unit). 

Enter 'The Green Light People'

The above may seem pretty dire if you were a targeted executive. But DTP leadership is very alive to the need to maintain morale internally and community standing externally. Full transparency requires a message that works for both internal self-talk and external engagement. 

That's best articulated by DTP becoming The Green Light People 

The new DTP will facilitate, not fumble.
The new DTP will catalyse, not clog-up.
The new DTP will revitalise, not retard.
Above all the new DTP will build and not block. 

Green Light will replace Red Tape in everything the Department does. 

Green Light's three key directions in the DTP portfolio include: 

Housing and Planning: The Green Light principle is most obviously topical for tacking Victoria's housing affordability crisis. At its core the new Plan for Victoria is about saying yes to more.  

Transport: the narrative here is about keeping people moving. First emphasis will be on cutting waiting at intersections (through shorter traffic light cycles), faster end-to-end public transport (through higher frequency partly funded by service reform) and improving railway reliability (by fixing unreliable recurring track and signal faults). A smaller but stronger DTP will also veto planned rail shutdowns that disrupt too many passengers. 

Cost of Living: An overarching theme across all of government for next month's state budget, with implications for DTP explained here. 

Branding to convey 'Vision Go'

For maximum transparency there will be no difference between internal and public-facing branding. After 20 years of obsessive branding and rebranding between 1998 and 2018, public transport (especially) went through a period of 'brandlessness' with little or no branding appearing. This opposite extreme led to a loss of network identity and confidence.

Green Light People branding will restore transport network pride and the sense that there's someone competent looking after the system and helping you go. You'll recognise this by the green light triangle progressively appearing on drivers licences, the public transport network (example below) and completed housing projects.  

QR codes will be installed at intersections to allow walkers to report waits of more than 60 seconds and drivers more than 120 seconds. The volume of requests thus received will dictate funding for "Vision Go" speed-up treatments. This will be done in a similar mechanism to the community-driven 'Pick My Project' scheme trialled before the 2018 state election. 

Summary

Delightful in both simplicity and profoundness, The Green Light People gives a new focus that the Department of Transport and Planning has lacked and needed for years. 

To mark the launch it is understood that DTP staff will enjoy a long morning tea, with this strictly concluding at noon today. 

Five ways to slash living costs through public transport

Imagine if all Victorian state government departments were requested to make cost of living relief central to their budget bids, along the lines of the hypothetical memo below. 

 

What could be done in the public transport portfolio? Let's run through some options and consider their merit. 

1. Indiscriminate fare cuts

The reflex reaction for unimaginative politicians seems to be big fare cuts, ostensibly to reduce living costs. 

The Liberals in Victoria (2022) and Labor in Queensland (2024) tried that but both parties didn't win, with the latter losing office. Although the victorious Qld LNP matched Labor and made their 50c fare permanent. And re-elected Victorian Labor in 2022 had their own counter-offer, capping regional fares. 

These sorts of measures are 'race to the bottom' policies. They make public transport cheap rather than good. With some exceptions (more on those later) public transport's main problem is not its cost to users but that existing services don't work for the majority of trips most people take due to the network's continued CBD/weekday peak focus. Accessibility and safety at night are other barriers. Hence most trips are driven, despite the higher costs of car ownership and use. 

The most expensive trips are those that cannot be reasonably be made by existing public transport services due to a lack of coverage, operating hours, frequency or route directness. The expenses are magnified if they are the sorts of trips people make often, such as (but not only) the commute to work.

Costs rise even more if the lack of public transport forces a household into buying another car it would not otherwise need. The chance of this is greatest in outer suburbs or where the jobs that people have or want are at hours or in locations without service. 

Thus indiscriminate fare cuts without service reform are regressive; favouring the better off minority in well-serviced suburbs or travelling at times when service is good. That is especially so in Melbourne and Brisbane, the Australian capitals worst at providing disadvantaged areas with good public transport according to a Climate Council study last year. Those with no or little useful service are unlikely to start using it if the fare falls or vanishes. 

If you want to cut living costs there's better options, especially if you want to help those with the biggest cost of living challenges the most. Also there's no related efficiency dividends. D.

2. Fairer family fares

Unlike the above this is a more nuanced approach based on what is and is not value for money with the current fare structure.

Through their pursuit of (almost) flat fares everywhere, governments (both sides) have arguably made  fares for long distances trips too cheap while fares for many short trips are too expensive. It doesn't pass the 'pub test' and is costing the network patronage.

Weakened perceptions of value can cause some to rationalise their own fare evasion. For example when you've got cases where a short three hour errand in Zone 1 can cost $11 in fares, the same as a day trip to Warrnambool or Sale. More honest people might either refrain from travelling or drive instead.

People working from home two days a week has made myki pass weekly and monthly fares (that effectively made weekend and other incidental travel free) less an option. That exacerbates the above issues with expensive short trips such that Uber looks better value, especially for urban millennial and zoomer inner suburban working couples or even higher income singles. Both are politically important demographics that Labor competes with Greens for votes. 

Reform options here could include extending the 2 hour valid ticket period to 3 hours or some form of short distance fare (harder to implement). 3 hour fares permit more short return trips to be done on the one fare but the latter would be cheaper for those just travelling one way. The former is probably easier to implement with less revenue foregone.  

Suburban families with kids also get a raw deal if travelling together on public transport. Almost all have at least one (and usually two) cars. Driving and parking is no dearer with 5 people than it is with 1. Whereas public transport costs increases with the number of people carried. The current fare structure might be mostly tolerable for singles but it discourages families who will be induced to drive everywhere unless traffic is terrible (eg inner city major events). 

Some relief to this existed when more people had weekly or longer ticketing products that made weekends effectively free. Or for those that didn't the $2.50 Sunday (or later weekend) Saver. However the full fare weekend cap now stands at $7.60, an increase that has exceeded CPI. Thus, like with singles and couples, PT's value for metropolitan family trips has fallen. This contrasts to past fare structures that incentivised weekend family travel (example below).  

Making the fare structure more progressive to restore the differences between short and long trips and thus improve value for money is worth considering. Allowing up to two children per full fare paying parent to travel free on weekends would provide cost of living relief for working families. A more expansive version could extend this to school holidays and/or children of parents paying concession fares. 

Since weekend PT ridership amongst families is currently low, the foregone revenue of Families Travelling Together weekend fare cuts would likely be small. There may even be higher revenue overall from more parents travelling on weekends. 

Fare reform that makes short, especially off-peak, travel cheaper could be funded by making some longer trips dearer, or if that is not politically acceptable, scrapping the regressive CBD Free Tram Zone (that places unnecessary pressure on our trams with consequences including for accessible access).  And like with families some of the costs may be offset by higher revenue from higher patronage.  

Selective fare reform that targets cases where public transport is particularly poor value for money could be worth considering as part of a living cost relief policy. Opportunities may exist for it to be done in a way that maximises patronage growth opportunities but minimises revenue foregone. Extending two hour fares to three hours and/or permitting free weekend travel for children with parents could be examples along these lines. B.

3. A job-ready PT network

Cutting living costs is one part of balancing household budgets. Maximising income is equally important for those in the workforce. 

Transport can help by making more jobs reasonably accessible from peoples' homes. Especially homes in suburbs with the highest cost of living stress, and for people with the lowest pay.

Another gain is that people can take on shifts that they previously couldn't or didn't pay due to improved and affordable transport options (see Uber Tax below). 

The starting point for all this is understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the current public transport service offering. It generally suits those whose jobs are weekdays 9-5 in the CBD as demonstrated by its high modal share. However that's a minority of the workforce given the number of jobs that are either suburban and/or have working hours outside of when public transport operates frequently or even at all. 

If you want more people to have to have the opportunity to be in better jobs with better pay then public transport needs to become an enabler, not a barrier. This means overcoming the class bias in current PT service provision by introducing more frequent 7 day timetables that better reflect the seven day demands of retail, hospitality and care sector jobs. 

There also needs to be improved connections to underserved employment areas, with the proposed Tarneit - Laverton Route 154 bus an excellent example of which there should be more. 

I discussed making our network more job ready here. This is basically a targeted service upgrade package to improve service frequencies, operating hours and network coverage to better suit more jobs. 

Implementation costs are kept low by (in many cases) working our existing train, tram and bus fleet harder to provide reasonably frequent service all week, not just for a few hours each day of it. There is also likely to be partly offsetting fare revenue gains as services targeted for upgrade (eg Craigieburn line, bus routes in Wyndham, weekend buses serving major shopping centres like Highpoint, Northland and Chadstone) already have above average patronage productivity and great catchment demographics. 

The biggest winners from this would be workers and their families in diverse western, northern and south-eastern suburbs that swung greatly against Labor in 2022 and again in the 2025 Werribee by-election. A job ready network would also assist employers with a bigger labour pool and support major events which rely on huge temporary workforces, mostly not on high incomes. 

Of all initiatives here, a job ready public transport network is the best targeted at not only cutting living costs but also boosting incomes and ensuring that people keep more of what they earn. It also stacks up politically as it delivers gains for people who have historically been overlooked but which are now more willing to change their vote. A. 

4. Growth area bus coverage

Even if your nearest industrial area gets a bus it is no good if there is still no bus from your home. GAIC has funded some bus upgrades but there's still suburbs, such as Mt Atkinson, that have yet to gain a regular bus service. Also, unlike direct budget funding, GAIC funding is limited term and conditional such that new routes are often placed over existing unreformed routes. 

New coverage almost certainly does require new buses. As do higher frequencies in growing areas like Pakenham that have had no significant improvements to their hourly buses for years. 

There are however suburbs quite near GAIC areas, such as Narre Warren South, that have a plethora of complex, overlapping but usually infrequent bus routes. Scope may exist for cost-effective bus network reforms in such areas to deliver benefits for growth and nearby established areas alike. 

Peoples' habits are often set when they do something big in their lives, eg a house move. If people move into a suburb with no public transport households need to buy more cars than what they might need or want if a public transport service existed. Then when they own cars they are likely to use them, contributing to local traffic woes (such as famously along Donnybrook Road in Kalkallo).

A car is also an expensive and depreciating asset that people sometimes borrow money for, typically second only to their home. They cost around $13000 per year to operate, with an EV only $2500 cheaper. If 10% of households in a growth suburb are able to defer a car purchase for a year due to it having public transport then that is a big cost of living saving for many people, including the opportunity to build a financial buffer for peace of mind or a life goal. 

It's indisputable. Having public transport in growth suburbs as soon as people move in is a huge benefit, including for peoples' financial security. A. 

5. Buses for Battlers: Service uplifts in high needs areas 

There is a band of established middle to outer suburbs that always seem to miss out on important services. Their populations may have high needs but for many years were taken for granted by major political parties. Either because they can hold seats without much effort, or the seats are unwinnable.

They are often diverse, have low educational outcomes and many not in paid work and on benefits. Many were home to industrial workers after WWII but were pummelled by 1970s - 1990s tariff cuts and deindustrialisation, causing these suburbs to degentrify. Them not having a growing population has caused them to be skipped over in favour of suburbs further out with regards to government investment. 

You'll find Melbourne examples around Laverton, St Albans, Broadmeadows, Campbellfield, West Heidelberg, Dandenong and Frankston. Some have got public transport upgrades but others have been passed over. This is even though the services that do run might have higher than average boardings productivity. Partly as a significant demographic (especially migrant women) do not drive or own cars.

As well as its other benefits seven day public transport can assist people to access urgent medical services or flee violence at home. Plus there are its social inclusion and participation benefits, along with connecting people to healthier, fresher or cheaper food options. 

To be fair the majority of these areas do have bus service. But it is often limited days and hours. Some high-needs areas like around St Albans, Glenroy, Campbellfield, Dandenong North and Doveton did not get a fair go from the (otherwise) wide-ranging Meeting our Transport Challenges 7 day bus upgrades from 2006. Brimbank (St Albans) gained significantly in 2014 with its new network while parts of Greater Dandenong gained from the Route 800 upgrade in 2024.

The usage success of the Route 800 upgrade demonstrates that people in high needs areas do use public transport if the service exists. Seven day upgrades like these also make the network more job-ready, so they further two objectives at once. 

A 'Buses for Battlers' package for high needs areas like Laverton, Brooklyn, St Albans, Glenroy, Campbellfield and Greater Dandenong might start with something like this: 

* New 7 day service on the following: 414, 431, 531, 536, 538, 802, 804, 814, 844 
* Extend following to 9pm: 423 424
* Boost weekend and evening service frequency on: 406, 408, 813, 828

Costs would be confined to drivers, fuel and maintenance as the buses needed to operate these upgraded services already exist. There may also be scope to find service hours by adjusting timetables on lesser used routes serving areas with lower social needs for an overall benefit.  

Research by people like Prof John Stanley has established high social benefits from upgraded bus services in low SIEFA areas like the above. A $5-10m pa package could deliver substantial gains in areas that need it most. A. 

Conclusion

More useful and better value for money public transport can be a worthwhile way to cut living costs and even improve household income. Five approaches to this have been discussed above. 

Paying for these 'higher good' gains may require offsetting savings to be found through attention to costs. The culture around that perhaps hasn't been as strong lately as it was thirty years ago. Examples may include control of project costs, fare evasion, payments to franchisees per service kilometre, addressing network overservicing and route duplication, staffing reviews and more. I discussed some of these management issues here and here.