Victorian transport policy power list for 2024

Anyone who wants to see things done in transport needs to be interested in power and influence. 

Government is about making choices. For every choice that is made a hundred are not. 

Power is the ability to make, steer, amend or block such choices.

Influence is 'having a seat at the table' or being considered when choices are made or contemplated. 

If it is known that 'party X will not wear decision Y' and this is brought up as a reason for not doing Y then this indicates that X's influence is substantial. It might not even be necessary for X to ask that something be done (or not done) if the Overton Window shuts out anything that could be detrimental to X's interest. Change that threatens party X's position can be particularly confronting if it affects what they see as a normal right, habit or lifestyle rather than a special perk.   

X can just as easily be a real or imagined class of people (eg car drivers, train users or traffic engineers) as much as a specific person. Consideration extended might involve people not having to pay for a scarce private good (like 'free' parking) on public property. Or not proceeding with a simpler and more frequent train timetable that was generally beneficial but which forced some commuters in some marginal seats to change trains. With several Frankston line seats on thin margins, this fate befell the cancelled 2015 Metro timetable. However the same government, emboldened by its strong 2018 electoral result, implemented features of it in the 2021 Metro timetable without undue controversy.  

Some sectors appear to have better safety cultures than others, for instance rail engineering or aviation versus road engineering. A more flexible stance might be taken where something (like tram stop accessibility) is a legal requirement but the power of those requesting compliance is lower than the will of the government which has alternative uses for the billions of dollars this would entail. Offences like 'white collar' crime, culpable driving causing death or, until recent law tightening, industrial manslaughter may attract lighter or less custodial penalties than other crimes.  

These and other examples show that power and influence are not distributed equally.

And they cannot be gauged just by looking at organisation charts. 

Much is informal, behind the scenes and undocumented. 

Organisations can gain standing by having their alumni on boards, as staffers and as executives of other bodies. In this cloistered environment it is generally known what the other influential players think with their perspectives accommodated.   

On the other hand some nominally senior bodies can have less standing than one might think. Nominally strong bodies can be disorganised, constrained or ignored. Other smaller, newer or less known actors may have more influence. 

There can sometimes be power vacuums with policy anarchy the result. This can either be bemoaned (by the cerebral academic and planning class who wished that authorities heeded them more and had more clout) or deftly exploited (by the more outcome-oriented policy entrepreneur class). 

Power and influence are transient, dancing around like shadows created by a flickering flame.  

Any attempt to measure them by an outsider won't be current or accurate. They can be highly location, time or issue dependent. And some powerful organisations (eg banks, super funds, developers, universities and even racing clubs) can make decisions that greatly affect land use and transport in this city. 

Still, at least a relative quantification should be tried. Below is my crude attempt. Click for a clearer view. More power or influence is near the top. Government bodies are in white, non government in black. As the latter are often modally based I've tried to put them on a left-right axis of sustainability. 

As noted above I've left off most non-transport bodies. However they can be important in setting agendas. An example was the CFMEU whose big success was getting thousands of jobs for their members made a part of Labor's 2014 platform. This was Project 10 000 (jobs) which became the Big Build (sold to the public as removing level crossings and building major rail and road projects).

RTBU and TWU haven't been so successful at this given public transport service per capita has actually declined on our busiest modes. Despite a 'Big Service' agenda for train, tram and bus being hugely transformative. However they are good at getting ex-leaders into Labor seats, joining others in a section of Labor Unity (TWU) or Industrial Left (RTBU). TWU can also claim success in convincing the government to decouple the bus driver role from any responsibility for fare collection (notably myki top-ups) during the pandemic, with driver safety a lobbying point. This made paying harder for passengers and led to the government losing control of fare compliance on buses (though DTP denies this, claiming high validation rates in its annual report).  CFMEU has lately had major internal issues but willingness of the government to stimulate housing construction may give some hope to members as major transport infrastructure loses its shine.  

More planning rather than transport advocates, YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) has risen to prominence in sympathy with Gen Y and Millennial concerns over housing affordability. These advocates for denser housing had a huge year in 2024, rising rapidly in public profile and influencing the government to plan for and incentivise dense housing near stations. The government's been saying the right things but has yet to commit to commensurate improvements in public transport frequency and directness to better connect new designated housing areas.  

I've left off some central government institutions like Victrack, PT Ombudsman, Auditor-General and Treasury. I'm guessing some in the latter would privately disagree with some government projects like the Suburban Rail Loop and would likely favour road pricing. I also didn't include think tanks like the Grattan Institute since they dismantled their Transport and Cities Unit. That got a lot of media for their opposition to the Suburban Rail Loop but it didn't shift the state government's stance on it one iota. 

Also omitted are unorganised passengers, though to be fair they were more vocal 15 years ago when train reliability was poor, there was less working from home and a letters column in mX newspaper. But if I was to plot it I would rank weekday peak CBD commuters as having vastly more influence than non-peak travellers (including  mostly migrant evening and weekend casual workers). Proof of this can be seen in the politics of the 2010 election and what got done. That is an improvement in reliability (and to some extent frequency) for peak commuters but, especially for others in locations like Broadmeadows, Coburg and Epping, negligible improvements in off-peak and evening frequencies, which remain low. On the other hand regional and outer Melbourne weekday commuters have done well with improved V/Line frequencies, as has the overnight weekend economy with 'Night Network' commencing in 2016 (as an implementation of 2014's 'Homesafe' policy). 

I ranked the Department of Transport and Planning quite low even though it is, on-paper, the central department for the portfolio. Why? I just think it punches below its weight notwithstanding (until recently) high portfolio staffing growth. The big projects get snaffled by other bodies while potentially significant ones like bus network reform or tram accessibility hardly get funded. Some time ago the State Ombudsman confirmed earlier media reports that the then DoT was left out of initial Suburban Rail Loop planning. In 2021 the Auditor-General found DTP had no overall transport plan to have custodianship over. DTP's public profile is also low with its soon to depart Secretary leaving most media to the minister, spin-off delivery agencies or unnamed officials quoted in news articles. 

DTP/DoT's weakness is not confined to the current government; James Murphy's The Making and Unmaking of East-West Link suggested similar a decade ago for major projects. The result, he wrote, is a contested and anarchic policy environment open for 'policy entrepreneurs' within and even outside government can have out-sized influence profile. Nature abhors a vacuum after all.

What do you think about this list? Should others be on it? Or are certain bodies more or less influential than I've indicated? Comments are welcome and can be left below. 

TT 194: Geelong's new train timetable - Good, bad & ugly

The latest V/Line train timetables to come out are for services to Geelong, Warrnambool and Ballarat. Starting December 1, they honour the government's (much-needed) 2022 election promise to boost Geelong line weekend service from every 40 to every 20 min. As well as other changes that I'll mention later. Today I'll just discuss the Geelong line with particular reference to the growth area stations along it (Waurn Ponds, Marshall, Wyndham Vale and Tarneit). 

New Geelong line timetable - the good

The 20 minute weekend boost is indeed a game-changer. Not just for Geelong but also Melbourne growth areas like Wyndham Vale and Tarneit. These are a similar distance out as outer Frankston line stations (with trains every 10 min) but had a quarter the frequency with the previous 40 minute service. This upgrade massively cuts that difference. 

Another big positive is that, apart from a few 'holes' (eg a 33 min gap at Waurn Ponds) 20 minute weekend frequency holds up for a 14 hour span (7am - 9pm). That is vastly handier than the ~10 hours found on busy Metro lines to major stations like Moonee Ponds, Essendon, Craigieburn, Coburg and Reservoir in Melbourne's service-starved north . Planning for Metro timetables in the north, which have been basically stagnant for years, can really draw inspiration from the Geelong line here.   

It's not just Metro lines in the safe-seated north that could benefit. At certain times (eg 7-9am Sundays and 7-9pm both weekend days) frequency on the Geelong weekend timetable even trumps that on busy eastern lines like Belgrave/Lilydale and Pakenham/Cranbourne. This is because all but a handful of Metro lines (Werribee, Williamstown and Frankston) only get a 30 minute service (or worse) at these times, especially on Sundays.   

New Geelong line timetable - the bad

Late weekend am starts remain

Trains need to run at times people need to travel. There's a point of diminishing returns - eg the number of people wanting to go to the CBD at 2am is less than say 8am. You might not run a train at 2am Sunday, or maybe you'd have a cheaper to run bus if you thought some type of service was justified. But you still need a decent span of hours so that the train is an option for travel to jobs, major events and other transport such as long distance trains or airport buses. This makes service in the 5am - 8am window super-critical, especially on weekends. Reinforced by the precautions many take of arriving earlier than strictly necessary for critical long-distance trips to allow an 'unreliability buffer'.   

A late weekend am start has been a chronic problem with the existing Geelong (and Melton) timetables. This is in stark contrast to Metro lines that now enjoy 24 hour Night Network services. While you might not run Night Network services on V/Line the first train should at least arrive reasonably early (eg say 6 or 6:30am even on Sunday morning). The new Geelong timetable does not fix this, with the first arrival remaining too late to be useful for some early morning events, especially on Sundays. 

 

While it would be desirable that the two extra early Sunday inbound trips needed should start from Waurn Ponds, even commencing them from Wyndham Vale would have substantial benefits given the high usage of this and Tarneit station. 

40 minute weekday interpeak frequency remains for Waurn Ponds and Marshall

Even though the weekend timetable got a big boost to capitalise on the line duplication the weekday timetable didn't so much. This means twice the waits between trains on weekdays than weekends, a less legible service, and excessive dependence on timetables (you can't just take a bus or drop someone off at a station and take it for granted there'll be a train within a reasonable time).

Waurn Ponds and Marshall are  the nearest stations to the major growth area of Armstrong Creek so justify the 20 minute weekday interpeak service that finishes at South Geelong continuing to Waurn Ponds. 

Bus and coach information not where it should be on the PTV website

If you scroll down the PTV website train item you'll see a list of something like 50 bus and coach routes listed. These will get timetable changes to retain coordination with trains. This is notable as the Wyndham and Geelong bus networks, introduced in 2015, are the biggest instance of rail / bus coordination in the state. Regrettably PTV have a 'silo' mentality when it comes to publishing passenger information with a dislike of cross-referencing and hyperlinks. Hence if you go to their bus and coach page you won't see reference to these timetable changes. At least a brief item on the bus page and a link should have been provided. Speaking of buses, the 190 from Wyndham Vale to Werribee, originally intended to coordinate with all Geelong trains, retains its 40 minute weekend frequency, thus meshing with every second weekend train rather than every train (more or less) before. 

New Geelong line timetable - the ugly

Complex and irregular peak stopping patterns 

The new timetable keeps this. An opportunity exists for a true greenfields timetable with more regular times and fewer unique stopping patterns to make catching trains easier. Especially for trips between intermediate stations. This change did not exploit this opportunity but the sooner this happens the better.

Some 'holes' with sharp service drop-offs

A break to a regular frequency can discourage travel at certain times. Or it can give rise to crowding as people try to plan their trips to avoid it. Essentially the timetable forcing a travel behaviour change.

This effect is particular pernicious when the gap is widened for peak direction trip at shoulder peak times. This is because shoulder peaks need good frequency and spare capacity to try to flatten the peaks and create room for more passengers.

The new timetable exacerbates an already existing problem as the gap between trains at Tarneit increases from an already unsatisfactory 28 minutes to 33 minutes around 9:30am on the inbound direction. This is due to a messy interface between the peak and off-peak pattern. Either rejigging the peak timetable or adding a short trip from Wyndham Vale to Southern Cross might help plug this gap.   

The weekend timetable has some unhelpful gaps too. For instance the 20 minute inbound frequency at Waurn Ponds is broken (becoming a 33 min gap) just before 3pm Sundays. It would be 40 minutes if the Warrnambool train didn't stop there.

Arguably worse, as it affects the whole line, is the extreme frequency drop-off after the 9:21pm from Waurn Ponds. Before then a 20 minute service runs. After then it's an 80 minute gap, with the next train at 10:41. The best fix would be an extra trip, perhaps departing at 10:01pm, such as is done on Saturday where the gap is 40 minutes. But the very least the frequency fall-off should be gentler with the 9:21pm departure moved later.

This hole leaves those in the Tarneit area without alternatives to plug it since regular bus routes that could have run from the Werribee line have typically ceased around 9pm Sundays. The only bus that does run late 7 nights in the City of Wyndham is the 190 between Wyndham Vale and Werribee, with its original intention being to connect with Geelong trains and compensate for the removal of direct trains to Werribee in 2015. Scheduling the Route 190 is a juggling act since it is likely that more passengers would benefit from good connections from the Werribee end than Wyndham Vale. However it is unfortunate that the last Sunday evening Geelong - Werribee connection has gone from super-tight (bus leaving 2 minutes after train arrives) to just broken (bus leaving 1 minute before train). Passengers aren't however completely stranded, with another (and last) bus being 30 minutes later (11:53pm).    

Uneven train timetables with big holes may be a consequence of having to accommodate other movements on the line, including long distance services. However then could also indicate a parsimonious attitude to timetabling and/or a refusal to countenance even minor but highly beneficial improvements that are considered 'out of scope'. Also, as Page 50 of the latest DTP annual report advises, V/Line has difficulty with fleet maintenance and availability, with Vlocity availability at 87.1% in the last year, well down on the 92.5% target.  
 

Conclusion and wider implications

This welcome timetable upgrade brings some much needed weekend frequency benefits to the Geelong line. This is a major win for a population catchment exceeding 600 000 people and growing fast. 'Almost there but not quite' is my summary. 

The need for refinements remain, likely with disproportionate benefits. The more significant include extending the weekday 20 minute interpeak frequency to Waurn Ponds, a simpler tidier peak timetable, fewer 30 - 80 minute 'holes' in schedules and earlier weekend start times so important to support major Melbourne and regional events. The number of extra weekly trips needed to plug these gaps would be relatively small since most of the hard work on improving basic frequencies at most times has already been done. 

It puzzles me why they weren't done this time. It seems that Melbourne has an austerity mindset when it comes to all-day train frequency, even though most of rail's expenses are fixed. Examples include duplicating train lines but not simplifying complex peak stopping patterns, neglecting frequency, or accepting 40 minute Sunday morning train frequencies on major lines (that not even Adelaide does).

International rail trouble-shooter Simon Lane found that Melbourne's train reliability problems in the 1990s mostly arose from bad timetabling. 30 years on timetabling remains the single biggest reason why Melbourne's train service is barely half as good as Sydney's and generally inferior to Perth's.   

A new culture of abundant service needs to supplant the current 'scarce service' mindset to maximise the Metro Tunnel's returns on the considerable political and financial capital invested in it. For example 5 minute rather than 10 minute all week frequencies for at least Metro Tunnel's central portion. Not excessive when one considers existing service levels in Toronto, Vancouver and Sydney on their subway/skytrain/metro lines. Or even Perth with 7.5 minute core network frequencies. 

Only with this plus all-week frequency boosts on intersecting lines can the Metro Tunnel truly deliver all business case benefits, including the huge wins possible from a reconfigured tram network and enhanced connectivity across the state's rail network. Including the Geelong line that will hopefully get further timetable tweaks addressing the issues raised, before Metro Tunnel opening day.   

Index to other Timetable Tuesday items 

UN 190: How are we going with bus reform?

 

Are we making progress on bus network reform? How fast is the overall health and usability of Melbourne's bus network improving? 

Back in March, when Victoria's Bus Plan turned 1000 days I did a bus network health check to gauge where we were at. That analysis found that two-thirds of Melbourne's 349 bus route had a serious timetable or route alignment problem, with about two-fifths of those having both. 

124 residential area routes did not meet minimum service standards with regards to operating hours, with 75 of those not running 7 days. Also 166 routes had serious issues such as complexity, weak termini or inefficient overlaps. 

More than seven months have since elapsed. Today the Bus Plan turns 1229 days as you can see from the count-up below.  

link to count-up Bus Plan clock

What's been the progress in this, the start of the plan's second thousand days? To find out I checked PTV's list of bus service changes and amended the health check spreadsheet I presented last time to include them. 

Some good things did happen with bus services in the last 7 months. 

But they are so few in number that you need to go to fractions of 1% to stop rounding errors being a risk when you make pie charts like below:  

Hardly a shift. In raw numbers this translates to the following (click for better view): 

The more significant changes include: 

* Number of bus routes in Melbourne rose from 349 to 351 due to new routes 475 and 501. Both routes were judged not to have serious issues so this improved the tally there as well. 

* Number of bus routes with minimum standards service or better grew by 3 from 213 to 216. Attributable to the new route 475 and extended operating hours on the 546 and 606. This growth matches the 2008 - 2024 average of 5 routes per year gaining minimum standards. It is however 90% down on the excellent 50 routes per year achieved between 2006 and 2008. 

 

* Proportion of bus routes with minimum standards increased only marginally (63.2 to 63.7%). This is because new Route 501, with its early finish, does not meet the minimum service standard of a 7 day service until 9pm. Neither does the 612, though its new Sunday service is welcome. 

* Number of bus routes operating 7 days increased from 263 to 267 (or 0.7% to reach 78.5%). Due to new 7 day growth area routes 475 and 501 commencing plus new Sunday service starting on the established area 546 and 612 routes. The 505's large frequency upgrade (to a weekday service every 20 min) also contributed to reducing the number of routes with a significant timetable issue. 

* The number of routes with serious route alignment or legibility issues fell by one to 165, attributable to the 546 gaining a consistent city end terminus (rather than alternating between Queen Vic Markets and Melbourne University). This indicates only 1 out of the 166 routes that had significant alignment issues got reform in this period - a very slow rate of progress if sustained.  

Conclusion

The record shows things are pretty sluggish in the bus service reform world right now. That's even if you apply creative licence and broaden this to include timetable upgrades on existing routes. Refranchising and electrification, both of less direct benefit to passengers, have instead attracted more official attention, with results from the former announced last month. 

Will the bus reform pace pick up in the next few months?  

Hopes were raised for routes 603, 604 and 605 on October 20 before PTV pulled the item from its website. These would have been good reforms that would have plugged some service 'black holes' and fixed 605's notoriously short operating hours and limited Sunday timetable. However 605 is still in for some rerouting via Domain Rd in coming months.    

The Route 800 7 day timetable upgrade, slated for later this year, will be a great Christmas present for much of the south-east.   

Last year's GAIC bus funding will mean some new and extended routes. Maybe a year or two off given normal time-lines. An Eynesbury bus got funding in the 2023-24 state budget so that is a near prospect. Beyond that I'd imagine that Mt Atkinson would be a front-runner, with significant political interest and a school bus service starting first term next year.  

Earlier this week the premier foreshadowed that the next GAIC round will include transport services, with announcements next year. These additions would be implemented around 2027, give or take a year.  

Scope exists for enterprising Labor MPs to include small-scale bus service upgrade requests in their budget bids for 2025. Especially given that infrastructure has been specifically excluded.   

Overall though bus reform is a long hard slog, with the Bus Plan proving the truism that it's nothing without budget funding. Indications are that growth areas will get needed catch-up coverage as mentioned above. 

But despite its cost-effectiveness and a successful start made around Deakin University, bus network reform appears as distant prospect as ever in other established areas. For example the promised Bus Reform Implementation Plan remains elusive. There have also been no outcomes from the metropolitan north, metropolitan north-east and Mildura bus reviews announced before the 2022 state election. 

Getting 7 day service funded on existing routes does however seem more alive, with examples like the 612, 766 and 800 raising hopes for more. Assuming 5 established area routes get 7 day upgrades each year (FixDandyBuses is backing 802, 804 & 814 for the 2025 budget), all 74 residential area bus routes currently without Sunday service will have it by 2039. 

Your views on whether you think this will happen before or after all tram stops are made accessible are appreciated and can be left in the comments below.  

See other Building Melbourne's Useful Network items here