Free public transport as a response to the fuel crisis?

A great video from Express Transit on the pros and cons of making public transport free in Melbourne and alternatives that could have a bigger impact. It's only 3 minutes so watch it!   

The first example was a Box Hill to Glen Waverley trip. That's currently much slower by public transport than driving. So much so that it's an unattractive option even if free. The Suburban Rail Loop would fix that but that's at least a decade away. 

I have suggested precursor SRL SmartBus routes be introduced much sooner. They will never be as fast as SRL station to station but would still deliver substantial improvements in connectivity, especially for the majority of people not right at a train station. Also when the SRL opens the precursor routes would be useful retaining as feeders (possibly with more stops added) as the stations are widely spaced. 

Victoria's Active Transport Plan released

 

Released without fanfare, parliamentary speeches or even a media release, Victoria's Active Transport Plan supplements earlier people transport modal plans for bus and tram. 

The term 'active transport' wasn't really a thing years ago. But past plans have dealt with walking and cycling. For example 2010's Pedestrian Access Strategy that I reviewed here. And a cycling strategy before that. 

The Transport Integration Act 2010 requires that the State Government prepare and periodically revise the transport plan for Victoria. The Auditor-General investigated this in 2021, finding that there was no overall integrated transport plan. When challenged the state government is generally nonchalant, typically (i) defining its agenda of "Big Build" projects as its plan, and (ii) pointing out its series of smaller plans (like for buses, trams and this one for active transport) that it deems as sufficient.  

You can read this latest plan here on the Transport Victoria website: https://transport.vic.gov.au/road-and-active-transport/active-transport/victorias-active-transport-plan . Its presentation is about as deadpan as it can be - there's no text or video summary for example. This shows the varying emphasis given on communications and public engagement across the transport portfolio, with a summary below. 

Even in the policy and administration space DTP seem to lag others in government. For instance the Auditor General has video summaries of all their reports, such as this recent one on Myki modernisation. As I've said before there are A and B teams in the transport portfolio, with the "Big Build" projects getting all the razzamatazz and resourcing.

So much for communications and profile. Now to content. Following are a few points I found interesting though it is not a detailed analysis. 

The 76 page plan aims to get more people using active transport for more of their trips by removing barriers. It describes itself as a "unified framework for action". It sets down a target of 25% as a mode share for active transport by 2030. 

The approach is informed by these five pillars:
1. accessibility and inclusion,
2. places and neighbourhoods,
3. integrated transport and safe street improvements,
4. health and wellbeing and
5. climate response 

The first few pages give examples of walking and cycling improvements. The executive summary describes how active transport features were embedded in major projects like level crossing removals and the Suburban Rail Loop. 

Public transport planners will be interested to know that 400 metres is given as a maximum walking distance to a local bus or tram with 800 metres to a train or express bus (p39). 

Page 41 has a strategic cycling corridor map. This is an advance on the Bus and Tram plans that did not have significant map content. 

Responses are as follows: 

1. Embed active transport as a core component in the planning and delivery of thriving and liveable suburbs and towns.

2a. Consistently adopt the implementation principles of attractive, safe and connected active transport networks to increase the number, diversity and frequency of people using active transport to meet their daily needs. 

2b. Neighbourhood active transport networks must be attractive, safe and connected to address key barriers to participation and enable more people to choose walking and riding for daily activities.

3. Prioritise investment by targeting locations across Victoria with the greatest uplift potential to achieve our 25 per cent mode share commitments.

4. We’ll address barriers to active transport through a whole-of-system response that aligns with the five pillars and supports behaviour change

The plan is better described as a high level strategy or framework. That's because there is no detailed budget or project list. Part of this is because many projects are small, dispersed and would require liaison with local government to deliver.

So it's more of an approach with page 67 giving a series of (not quantified) KPIs to measure success towards the 25% by 2030 active transport mode share target. And it's much longer than 2021's 17-page Victoria's Bus Plan. The latter shunted the main detail off to a Bus Reform Implementation Plan that did get prepared but was ultimately rejected by Cabinet in late 2023. What ultimately proved more important for buses was not its modal plan but funding found through processes such as GAIC and the State Budget.  

What do stakeholder groups and others think? Two mode-specific stakeholders get mentioned in the plan. Bicycle Network welcomed the plan but urged the government to clarify specific priorities and any timetables for delivery. Victoria Walks said on Facebook that it’s great to see walking recognised as a key part of how we get around. Other opinions on r/MelbourneCycling (Reddit). 

Comments from practitioners in the field (such as seen on LinkedIn) saw Victoria's Active Transport Plan as advancing their work and setting down good principles.

Whether its measures get translated into widespread implementation remain to be seen.  

Your thoughts are appreciated and can be left below. 

26% to run Myki? VAGO reports on Myki modernisation

This state Auditor-General report is about the much-anticipated (and now under trial) move towards credit card acceptance on myki readers and an eventual transition to account based ticketing. It was tabled on Wednesday. 

Read the report here: https://www.audit.vic.gov.au/report/modernising-myki

My top 4 take-aways:

- The project is on track to its revised time-line after previous delays (due to contracting squabbles) and a cost increases ($137m more).

- 26% of revenue collected by the ticketing system goes to run it. VAGO puts that number at $2.96 out of a $11.40 full daily fare which seems high. If you looked at it differently (eg attributed a flat amount from each passenger to run the ticketing system) there'd be some ticket types (eg the $3 concession daily for a short regional trip) where the fare hardly offsets myki running costs. And note that this report was done before under 18s got free travel so ticketing system cost will be spread over even fewer paying passengers. 

- Verifying concession entitlements is complex and high-risk. It will be done in later stages after the system is up and running for full fare passengers travelling in the existing Myki area. In other words full fare passengers will be able to pay with credit or myki cards but concession passengers will just have myki for a while yet. 

- VAGO found that DTP couldn't really quantify benefits or demonstrate value for money. Thus continuing a tradition of haphazard administration going back at least 35 years with four ticketing systems under eight premiers. 

There is a much better summary than the above and some discussion on the Reddit thread below: 

https://www.reddit.com/r/MelbourneTrains/comments/1rwzyks/victorian_auditorgenerals_office_modernising_myki/

Where to from here for modernised Myki?

History almost always repeats with public transport ticketing systems in Victoria. No other Australian state has made heavier weather of rolling out new ticketing systems than Victoria. Symptoms include much-publicised project time and cost blow-outs. And megalitres of newspaper headline ink. 

There have also been performance issues but efforts to fix them for both Metcard and Myki made reliability at least acceptable in the last few years before the next system took over. In contrast scratch tickets were never successful (except for fare evaders) so the system got replaced. 

The above did not mean that there were not some functionality limitations that the subsequent ticketing system tried to fix. And one poor decision can set a bad path that ripples for years. 

Myki was intended to be a dual ticket system. Regular passengers would have durable cards that they could top up while occasional passengers would have a disposable short term ticket option.

They could have gone two ways with the short term ticket. Either it could be an expensive to produce cardboard ticket with the electronic smarts to open station barriers or a cheap paper ticket that needed to be shown to an attendant.

The project opted for the electronic cardboard ticket. Which came into use when myki started in Geelong. There was a time that you could see discarded short-term Mykis on the ground there. Their  spiral antennas were visible when you held them up to the light. Short-term tickets worked but were expensive to produce, especially relative to concession fares. 

The Myki project was then in a lot of trouble, frequently making headlines for cost and time blow-outs. Premier John Brumby later said that he received wrong advice from the then DoT regarding the choice of KAMCO to deliver and regretted not challenging it.

The incoming Baillieu Coalition government of 2010 reviewed the Myki project. The project too far advanced to scrap, it proceeded in a reduced scope form. The cut meant that some parts of the state would not get Myki. There would also be no Myki ticket vending machines on trams and no short-term ticket option.

Hence even casual travellers would have to find a Myki outlet, pay for a piece of plastic they might never use more than once and then top it up with enough to pay the fare. And it would be awkward if they wanted to get a refund of unused credit or return their card.

The descoped Myki was fine for regular train commuters but a pain for tourists and other occasional users. Myki's clunkiness won it no friends amongst various civic and opinion leaders (the same people who also gripe about our lack of airport rail).

A bidding war during the 2014 election campaign led to the (counterproductive) CBD free tram zone being created, possibly exacerbated by Myki's issues. And the state government contracted with Conduent to update myki to allow credit card and mobile payments - something else that would help visitors and occasional users. 

Unlike trams, Myki card top-ups were offered on buses. But that was suspended during (and not resumed after) the pandemic. With paying hard and evasion easy, fare dodging went through the roof with DTP's attitudes towards evasion oscillating between denial and apathy. 

Things might have worked out differently had paper been chosen for the short-term ticket medium. Per-ticket costs (a few cents) would have been lower. Thus it might have escaped the descoping under the Coalition. There would have been fewer hassles for occasional travellers, less fare evasion on buses and likely less of a perceived need for updates to support credit card payments.

Claimed advantages of cardboard short-term tickets opening barriers may have been over-stated as the vast majority of passengers entering stations would be using durable Mykis. Governments could instead have concentrated on matters more central to providing good service, such as not descoping infrastructure on projects such as Regional Rail Link and Metro Tunnel and improved buses, instead. 

Back to today's reality. Below is the time-line from the VAGO report. 

Right now we are in the start of Phase 2, with the full fare paying public invited to try credit card payment on selected V/Line and Metro lines. If results are good this will be extended to all train lines in the existing Myki area. Followed by tram and bus. 

Phase 3 involves extensions to more passengers (concession holders) and more areas (those not in the myki areas). The latter is potentially beneficial for areas like South Gippsland that are relatively close to Melbourne yet are still on paper tickets because their train lines closed years ago all their transport is provided by coach. 

The audit flagged verifying concession entitlements as a complication. That's both for DTP administratively (with 150 agreements needed with concession authorities) and for the customer with use of an online portal involved. The concession platform is expected to cost $34m over 10 years (on top of $1.96b over 15 years for the main contract). 

Then there's the political angle. This is an election year. The current long-standing state government is struggling in the polls. Even though it's generally poor policy, cutting fares has been politically fashionable as a 'cost of living' measure in some states. As has extending 'free' travel to more groups such as this government has done with under 18s (under the "Youth Myki" - confusingly the concession fare "Child Myki" is now just for 18 year-old adults!).

Especially if Myki costs about as much as it recoups in fares for some concession passenger trips the temptation to descope aspects of modernised Myki Phase 3 while also extending free (or very cheap) travel to some groups might just be too tempting for some in or out of government. 

The next several months will be very interesting for transport fares and ticketing in Victoria!