Executive Summary: Proposed and promised bus network reform was to be the biggest people moving transport project in the state. It was quietly dumped some time in 2023. Here's what we know.
Four years ago yesterday then public transport minister (and now premier) Ben Carroll promised a major review of bus services across Melbourne's north, north-east and Mildura.
This promise was made two months before the November 2022 state election. The department went to a lot of work, engaged consultants, commissioned reports, ran public surveys etc.
My write-up on this at the time is here:
https://melbourneontransit.blogspot.com/2022/09/un-137-bus-network-reviews-coming-to.html
Since then our understanding of state politics has changed with the state leadership. We can now view bus reform similar to Airport Rail - another project that was promised before the 2022 state election but dumped shortly after. Not only that but the same people were involved, including those out of favour with the then leadership.
Here's the story.
The 'eastern strategy'
Since then our understanding of state politics has changed with the state leadership. We can now view bus reform similar to Airport Rail - another project that was promised before the 2022 state election but dumped shortly after. Not only that but the same people were involved, including those out of favour with the then leadership.
Here's the story.
The 'eastern strategy'
While its primary vote share declined the election was a landslide for Labor with their seat number actually rising (despite lowered primary vote). It was a political triumph for premier Daniel Andrews, guaranteeing a time in office longer than either the Cain/Kirner or Bracks/Brumby Labor governments.
Andrews Labor returned the favour to its new eastern and southern voters in the form of level crossing removals, new lifesaving clubs and, most spectacularly, the Suburban Rail Loop. Those involved (who you often hear interviewed on Socially Democratic) thought it was a political masterstroke. After all who can argue with three straight wins with increasing majorities each time?
However what you might call Labor's 'eastern strategy' was funded by breaking promises or at least understandings in their western and northern heartland that political strategist Kos Samaras explained was considered a bank of safe seats that could be raided to retain the support of more electorally fickle centrist easterners.
The 'freezer'
In transport the most high profile examples of this was the delayed Western Rail Plan, Melton electrification and airport rail, with the latter particularly associated with the out of favour Ben Carroll who was described in the media as being consigned to Daniel Andrews' 'freezer'.
While Carroll was a senior minister (in Labor it's the factions, not the leader largely determining who forms the ministry) he was not then on the government's Expenditure Review Committee, the main group that directs spending priorities, especially when fast cuts need to be made.
Carroll reportedly found out about ERC's April 2023 decision to dump airport rail through a Herald Sun headline. This was doubly embarrassing to him. Both as the responsible minister for public transport and the local member who thought he had won a victory in September 2022 by getting the airport rail plans changed to include a station at Keilor East.
The glow of that helped win the election but was in tatters less than six months later. I'm reminded of how triumph turned to (ultimately unrecoverable) despair for the Keating government when after the 1993 election victory over Hewson's GST they brought down a deeply unpopular budget later that year with many tax rises.
Premier Andrews was no friend of buses, whether in his own seat or elsewhere. His failure to get the Route 800 upgraded during his entire 20 plus years of holding Mulgrave (despite unprecedented new bus service funding under premiers Bracks and Brumby) illustrates that. And, in a partial repeat of 30 years earlier, relations between the state government and the protectionist local parts of the bus industry were soured by protests at parliament in 2018. That might have harmed what goodwill there was in government toward buses around this time, with passengers being the losers.
The Bus Plan
So what happened to the major plank of Victoria's Bus Plan whose responsible minister was none other than Ben Carroll? The plan itself was launched in 2021. As I said at the time there wasn't much detail in it - that was to the the subject of a later Bus Reform Implementation Plan.
That became the bus reform pilot projects for Melbourne's north, Melbourne's north-east and Mildura announced before the 2022 state election. Extensive market research and planning was done including a staged plan for a grid network of buses every 10 minutes over long hours on main roads.
Andrews Labor returned the favour to its new eastern and southern voters in the form of level crossing removals, new lifesaving clubs and, most spectacularly, the Suburban Rail Loop. Those involved (who you often hear interviewed on Socially Democratic) thought it was a political masterstroke. After all who can argue with three straight wins with increasing majorities each time?
However what you might call Labor's 'eastern strategy' was funded by breaking promises or at least understandings in their western and northern heartland that political strategist Kos Samaras explained was considered a bank of safe seats that could be raided to retain the support of more electorally fickle centrist easterners.
The 'freezer'
In transport the most high profile examples of this was the delayed Western Rail Plan, Melton electrification and airport rail, with the latter particularly associated with the out of favour Ben Carroll who was described in the media as being consigned to Daniel Andrews' 'freezer'.
While Carroll was a senior minister (in Labor it's the factions, not the leader largely determining who forms the ministry) he was not then on the government's Expenditure Review Committee, the main group that directs spending priorities, especially when fast cuts need to be made.
Carroll reportedly found out about ERC's April 2023 decision to dump airport rail through a Herald Sun headline. This was doubly embarrassing to him. Both as the responsible minister for public transport and the local member who thought he had won a victory in September 2022 by getting the airport rail plans changed to include a station at Keilor East.
The glow of that helped win the election but was in tatters less than six months later. I'm reminded of how triumph turned to (ultimately unrecoverable) despair for the Keating government when after the 1993 election victory over Hewson's GST they brought down a deeply unpopular budget later that year with many tax rises.
Premier Andrews was no friend of buses, whether in his own seat or elsewhere. His failure to get the Route 800 upgraded during his entire 20 plus years of holding Mulgrave (despite unprecedented new bus service funding under premiers Bracks and Brumby) illustrates that. And, in a partial repeat of 30 years earlier, relations between the state government and the protectionist local parts of the bus industry were soured by protests at parliament in 2018. That might have harmed what goodwill there was in government toward buses around this time, with passengers being the losers.
The Bus Plan
So what happened to the major plank of Victoria's Bus Plan whose responsible minister was none other than Ben Carroll? The plan itself was launched in 2021. As I said at the time there wasn't much detail in it - that was to the the subject of a later Bus Reform Implementation Plan.
That became the bus reform pilot projects for Melbourne's north, Melbourne's north-east and Mildura announced before the 2022 state election. Extensive market research and planning was done including a staged plan for a grid network of buses every 10 minutes over long hours on main roads.
Infrastructure Victoria was saying likewise and, through various reports and media appearances, was a constant voice for buses' potential. However after a long period of not being listened to very much, the government recently announced its intention to wind it up.
Not running good buses is like a broadband network that delivers fibre to the node, not fibre to the premises. In transport terms poor last-mile and orbital bus networks weaken usage benefits from major capital projects such as level crossing removals and the Metro Tunnel.
This is a flaw of major projects - Benefit Cost Ratios are used to justify funding for them but there are rarely reviews on whether anticipated benefits were realised (which is less likely if over-runs cause high-benefit connectivity and wider network features to be descoped - as has happened to both the Metro Tunnel and more recently the Suburban Rail Loop projects).
The 2024 state budget marked the low point for buses in Melbourne. Only the Route 800 upgrade got funded - nothing else did, not even the bus plan that DTP spent more than two years working on. At the time we didn't know how or why government got cold feet on something that had previously been supported and promised. It was arguably a case of double standards; a $5 or $10 billion blow-out on a major project was accepted almost without question while an amount 1% of that could not be found to start (much lower financial risk) bus reform.
The official silence was broken in September 2025 by a vigilant Legislative Council that got internal bus reform documents tabled (18 months after their request). My account of that (including media commentary) is here. After raising expectations the government lost interest in buses for a while with the 2023 and 2024 state budget particularly lean. And that's not mentioning the huge backlog in fixing 'low hanging fruit' due to the government then playing go-slow on bus reform since its rejection of the (admittedly flawed) Transdev network reform in 2015.
Victoria's Auditor-General confirmed that the state government was not on track to achieve Bus Plan aims in a report tabled in June 2026 and discussed here. VAGO also found that departmental transparency was lacking. This confirms both my comments above and the difficulties the Legislative Council had getting its document request furnished.
Lessons for advocates
The moral from this? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
When a political party promises a bus network review (regardless of merit) do not believe them.
Daniel Andrews' Labor burnt those wanting bus reform in 2022. It could be them or another party who burns us in 2026.
Instead anticipate a review's likely main findings and seek direct political commitments on them. Eg specific upgrades or extensions to specific routes. Such upgrades may need to be accompanied by network reviews for best efficiency and coverage but the review itself should never be the centrepiece of your ask. Asking for something specific means that you can have a yes/no answer on whether a proposal becomes a promise and whether this is honoured.
Don't do what the Greens tried in 2022 and make wishy-washy promises about electric buses everywhere with no details of routes. Voters need to know the direct benefits of a policy to them and only maps with routes and proposed frequencies can deliver that for buses. A small number of affordable and specific undertakings is far better than promises of a grand but vague strategy. And don't get too caught up in result-less processes like the 'We need a transport plan' type people can be prone to doing.
Out of the freezer onto the table?
The same change that saw Jacinta Allan take over from Daniel Andrews saw Gabrielle Williams take over from Ben Carroll as minister responsible for public transport.
Minister Williams was apparently in a warmer place with better luck winning funding than her predecessor. The 2025 and especially 2026 state budgets marked a revival of government interest in funding for improved Metro train frequencies and bus services. A major emphasis has been reducing maximum waits on selected bus routes from 40-60 to 20 minutes as well as some new or extended routes.
This is very welcome and could be almost transformational if carried through to maybe 40 more bus routes across Melbourne. Though it does not replace the desirability 10 minute frequencies on major corridors for a true 'turn up and go' network. This is most economically funded by considering the sort of bold bus network reform that DTP started work on in 2022 but was not progressed with.
The future
It is too soon to know about the record of new Transport Minister Vicki Ward. Or the backing of the new premier who was so supportive of bus network reform as minister five years ago. Recent transport announcements have been about new or repaired roads - not closing the still widespread 30, 40 or 60 minute gaps that are effectively the potholes of a connected public transport network.
Neither have we yet seen bus policies from any of the major parties. Shaping these will create a major opportunity for advocates with stakeholders like the PTUA and BusVic already making a contribution. It is also important for individuals like you to play a part by citing buses (and public transport services more broadly) when you meet candidates who solicit your vote.
See other Timetable Tuesday items here
The future
It is too soon to know about the record of new Transport Minister Vicki Ward. Or the backing of the new premier who was so supportive of bus network reform as minister five years ago. Recent transport announcements have been about new or repaired roads - not closing the still widespread 30, 40 or 60 minute gaps that are effectively the potholes of a connected public transport network.
Neither have we yet seen bus policies from any of the major parties. Shaping these will create a major opportunity for advocates with stakeholders like the PTUA and BusVic already making a contribution. It is also important for individuals like you to play a part by citing buses (and public transport services more broadly) when you meet candidates who solicit your vote.
See other Timetable Tuesday items here
