35 years of public transport policy - a potted history

If you wanted to do a history of public transport policy you'd go through numerous budgets, annual reports, media articles and more. That would give you a chronology that you could distil to draw out the main themes. 

Or you could do a 'seat of your pants' tour based on one's memory of what seemed most pressing at the time. That's what today's screed is all about. It's based on the idea that transport departments can only juggle a few balls at once. At any one time only a few are in the air with the rest on the ground. And if they choose to pick up a new ball they must drop another. 

Here's a graph of the latter since 1990. I've taken six pretty influential themes over the last 35 years and attempted to plot their relative importance. That qualifier is important; there have been times where the agenda has been thin but something quite small looks relatively big because not much else has happened. Conversely something might appear to be in relative decline but may still be increasing absolutely if other areas are rising faster.  

Recession

Victoria started the 1990s in a financial mess. That led to cost-cutting and a political malaise that led to lasting damage to the public transport network. Some country centres lost their rail service while a heap of metropolitan bus services lost peak, after 7pm and Sunday service. On the latter Route 800 only had its 7 day service restored a few weeks ago while 536 in Glenroy is still waiting. 

So it's not surprising that the start of the graph is dominated by cost-cutting. Along with ticketing, which would go on to have several bouts of prominence (firstly the failed scratch tickets, then Metcard, Myki and now post-Myki).  Any correlation between ticketing systems with the 11 year solar cycle is accidental but it makes a nice graph, so here it is below. 

 

Franchising and branding (but stagnation elsewhere)

Financial and ticketing crises crowded out pretty much everything else at the start of the 1990s. But they were soon joined by contract / franchising issues after the election of the Kennett government. Firstly for Met buses and then for rail and tram.

It was thought that private operation could cut union militancy and save costs. The latter didn't happen since most costs had already been cut during state operation (reported by the Auditor General in his 'From a system to a service' report). Franchising was also accompanied by multiple rebranding frenzies that cost untold millions for no benefit. We thought Metlink would be enduring but we then got PTV (whose scope was wider, including many buses), an aborted short-lived 'Transport for Victoria' and then the current emphasis of debranding. 

Like rebranding and ticketing, there were bouts of franchising and refranchising. Most notable years were 2009 (when both incumbent train and tram operators got replaced, including the 'on the nose' Connex) and 2013 when the government chose (what turned out to be) a cheap and nasty offer from Transdev to run our busiest bus routes under the Metropolitan Bus Franchise. That led to skimping on service delivery, bus presentation and safety, culminating in a fleet maintenance crisis in 2017. Transdev lost the bus contract to Kinetic a few years later but has returned recently to run Melbourne's trams. 

It's worth reflecting on which emphases and efforts were unambiguously beneficial for passengers. These come down to just two of the six - service and infrastructure. In about the first half of the 35 years they were very much a minority of the emphasis. However they were to become more prominent in the last half. 

Service

Service has been in fits and starts. Often gains in a period were confined to one or two modes. Notable examples include the substantial weekday interpeak frequency gains for metropolitan rail in the south-east under Kennett in 1996. As a sweetener for franchising both rail and trams got a big Sunday service upgrade in 1999. 

2002 had a little bit for metropolitan buses (SmartBus pilots and some limited growth area and Sunday upgrades). The later Bracks and early Brumby period was largely about regional rail with big timetable gains under Regional Fast Rail.

While under-appreciated buses were also strongly funded from 2006 with the transformative MOTC plan making 7 day bus services the rule rather than an exception in metropolitan Melbourne. In a few short years the pace of service uplift was about 10 times that which happened in the years subsequent. The Brumby government also presided over a large and successful SmartBus roll-out (mostly in the eastern suburbs) and a less-implemented series of local bus network reviews. However metropolitan rail service and reliability were neglected; something that would have major political implications for it a few years later. 

From about 2010 there was a partial pivot in service priorities from metropolitan bus to metropolitan rail. Timetable upgrades happened under both parties when in government with significant frequency upgrades, especially in the south-east. The investment in metropolitan rail eventually resulted in improved reliability under the new franchisee MTM but this came two or three years too late to save Labor in 2010. Neither did it seem to help the Coalition in 2014 who lost that year's election to Labor after a single term. 

Having said that, while the Coalition didn't increase overall bus service kilometres very much, it did preside over a lot of sensible bus network reform in 2014 along with the planning for what was to be rolled out in 2015. Add rail service upgrades and 2014 shows up as an epic year that saw a level of metropolitan service reform that no successive government has since matched. 

The infrastructure boom (when nothing else counted)

At most times two or three emphases vied for attention. However after mid-2015 (when there were big Regional Rail Link-associated V/Line train and feeder bus upgrades) all emphasis turned to infrastructure builds such as level crossing removals and the Metro Tunnel. This accelerated activity became a frenzy just before the 2018 election when even more projects like the Western Rail Plan, Geelong fast rail, airport rail, Rowville tram and Suburban Rail Loop were announced. 

If it wasn't infrastructure it didn't matter in those low interest rates/cheap money times. Metropolitan service was especially de-emphasised with the per-capita decline that started in 2011 continuing.  For example a proposed simplified Metro train timetable in 2015 didn't happen (though we got parts later introduced in 2021). Bus reform was also basically ditched in 2015 with Transdev's (arguably ill-advised) greenfields timetable vetoed by the minister and no substantial alternative implemented.

Regional rail service had better fortunes with higher frequency more faithfully following infrastructure upgrades, notably the abovementioned Regional Rail Link in 2015 and the Ballarat Line Upgrade a few years later (which saw Melton get a 20 minute off-peak weekday service, though weekends remain at stifling hourly frequencies).  

Recent times

Though it was only apparent to most after state Labor was returned in 2022, the infrastructure mania peaked in 2018. This more recent period has seen projects like Geelong fast rail, Rowville tram and airport rail cancelled or deferred as rising interest rates were biting state finances. There was increased activity in bus recontracting, bus electrification, tram construction and tram refranchising while post-Myki ticketing troubles were making a comeback in the news.

A bus plan emerged and then flopped with neither significant budget support in 2023 and 2024 nor the promised implementation plan materialising. Similarly the major northern, north-eastern and Mildura bus reviews were good for a pre-2022 election announcement but these look dead too. About the best you could argue is that the bus plan lives in a post hoc sense. That is what would likely have been done anyway is described as being part of the bus plan. That includes the substantial increase in growth area school bus services (which at one return trip per day is a good way to pad out a list such as a secretary might need to present to PAEC to substantiate their bus reform 'activity'). 

There may be a revival of interest in service when the Metro Tunnel opens next year, though the government is being tight-lipped about even broad specifications of the timetables that will run on these and other lines. If we had a better indication of that then I'd have credited service more on the graph. 

Overall it looks as if we're reverting to a more mixed pattern of what's considered the most prominent policies in transport as infrastructure projects move from construction to operation. Though maybe there'll be some announcements or promises nearer the 2026 state election, especially in outer growth areas. We've already seen some encouraging signs on this with growth area buses funded through GAIC. 

Apart from some potential further growth area works, the government might consider it's done the hard yards on transport infrastructure and it's time for a different emphasis. Within transport it's time to realise infrastructure's benefits, which to date have been far less exploited than what they could be. 

Let's hope that the focus is on productive and beneficial initiatives rather than, as was the case before about 2006, excessive emphasis on peripheral issues like contracting, rebranding and ticketing, which as we have seen can distract from the main games of infrastructure and service.