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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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
See more Building Melbourne's Useful Network items here
