If you want better buses in Melbourne it's often worth asking for a train or a tram. If you're loud enough you'll at least get bus upgrades, as has been demonstrated for Knox City, Rowville and (most notably) Doncaster.
Or you could ask for super-frequent service, eg buses every 10 minutes. If you're vocal enough the government might meet you half way. A major development, especially if a government building, can also be a catalyst.
The last two factors seem to have helped buses in Wyndham.
Assisted by an already popular but underserviced existing bus network and a tight by-election that jolted the government the Wyndham area will be getting two more bus routes running every 20 minutes all week from Sunday December 7, 2025.
This comes on top of similar frequency and operating hours upgrades to three or four other routes back in July.
Locals, used to seeing buses not start until years after people move in, might still see this as too slow. But for a government that has perfected the art of removing level crossings faster than adding new or reformed bus services it represents blistering progress from a formerly 'sleeping giant' transport department.
Buses every 30 to 60 minutes and nothing after 9pm remain the standard offer, especially on weekends. This includes in the fast-growing or densely populated areas of Melton, Craigieburn, Brunswick/Coburg and Box Hill, none of which have even one seven day every 20 minutes or better bus route (as mapped here).
Whereas, in less than a month, the City of Wyndham will have five individual bus routes operating every 20 minutes or better seven days. That's up from two just six months earlier.
The upgrades are a mix of new routes and frequency upgrades.
Route 153 from Williams Landing to Werribee via Hoppers Crossing is a direct but limited service route. Currently it's only every 40 weekdays and every 60 minutes weekends. Operating hours are short, with the timetable (like routes 439 and 441) not even meeting minimum service standards, particularly on weekends. This will be upgraded to run every 20 minutes with the 2025 state budget funding rationale being to serve the big new court precinct. However its benefits will be much more than that with the 153 also serving the hospital and trades precincts further east. The new timetable includes not just a weekday upgrade but even bigger weekend upgrade with service at least quadrupling (every 60 to every 20 minutes with much longer hours).
Route 154 from Tarneit to Laverton via Laverton North is a much awaited new route. It will provide new residential coverage north of Tarneit (much needed due to the area only having a very inadequate FlexiRide currently) and a new connection to jobs in the industrial area. The lack of a bus between a huge concentration of residents and a huge concentration of jobs just a few kilometres apart was a glaring omission from the existing network so this addition should be warmly received. Especially given the better than expected 20 minute 7 day frequency that will operate. The improved frequency and span will also benefit Bladin St Laverton - a residential area with high social needs.
Route 194 is the third service to commence on December 7. See all those houses west of the railway when travelling to Geelong from Wyndham Vale? That's Mambourin which for years lacked a bus to anywhere. 194 will serve that. For now it will run from Wyndham Vale Station to Harpley Estate, with a continuation to Werribee happening later. The 194 has the more usual local standards of service with a 20 minute peak/40 minute interpeak frequency provided.
The 154 and 194 were funded through GAIC developer contributions from the 2024 round. The intention was that they wouldn't start until early 2026 - rather late given the populations already in their catchments. Bringing their commencement forward is a welcome challenge to the slow pace of bus service roll-outs that have sometimes kept residents waiting years for buses. It is also a win for MPs such as John Lister who have been pushing internally for earlier starts.
Information and marketing
Ministerial media releases mentioning the Wyndham bus upgrades came out on November 6 (Werribee Court and 153) and November 7 (153, 154 and 194). Due rigour was not exercised in their drafting; the 153 one initially cited a non-existent route number (later corrected) while the later one undersold the 154's frequency (the 20 minute service applies almost all week, not just in peaks). Sadly this underselling of the 154 made it into local media that took the release at face value.
The November 7 release advised that information would be available on the Transport Victoria website that day. This proved to be the case for the timetables but the news item describing the changes appeared unavailable until the following day. Even then it wasn't easily accessible.
This is because TV website staff don't always link items to the relevant box tick menus nor test this works after adding content. This causes news items to be uploaded but not indexed, making them inaccessible unless (a) you know the item exists and (b) you do a Google search to find the link. This is what happened last Friday with the news item describing these changes. TV's record is patchy here; the new Route 18 Lara - Avalon bus announced yesterday did get properly indexed so is accessible.
TV's website is run by a complex siloed bureaucracy. One part looks after timetable data (uploaded weekly on Fridays), another part uploads written text content while another does maps. Maps may be passed to stakeholders such as politicians but rarely get uploaded to news items which are overwhelmingly text heavy. An interchange map for example would be highly beneficial given that these changes involve relocated stops at Tarneit station but this is not provided.
Local politicians, notably John Lister (Werribee), Sarah Connolly (Laverton) and Dylan Wight (Tarneit) have actively promoted the bus upgrades on their social media. All are Labor Legislative Assembly members.
Lizzie Blandthorn and Ingrid Stitt, Labor's two Western Metropolitan members, post less on social media and seem quieter on transport matters. This contrasts with non-government Western Metropolitan MLCs such as Moira Deeming, David Ettershank and Trung Luu who have been prominent voices (including asking questions on transport in parliament).
If you were to rate everyone's performance in promotion then the following scores apply:
* Ministerial advisers and media: 6/10 (lose points for inaccuracy and underselling)
* DTP/TV: 3/10 (published timetables but not news item on time, indexing doesn't work, no maps)
* Local Wyndham MPs: 9/10 (very active)
Finishing the job
While it still lacks SmartBus routes such as operate mostly in the east, these upgrades give Wyndham a relatively high number of bus routes that run every 20 minutes or better seven days per week.
However there could still be more given the exceptional ridership productivity of existing services relative to most other suburbs and the lopsidedness of 20 minute service even after these changes (with just one - the 154 - wholly east of Derrimut Rd).
Based on catchment and usage the next tranche of routes that should to go to every 20 min all week should be three in Point Cook (494, 495, 497) and three to Tarneit (150, 152 and 160) with longer hours also desirable to match the recently upgraded routes. Extending 194 to Werribee and a 441 service upgrade should be other early initiatives.
It would be highly desirable if the mid-2026 Metro train timetable (which will boost Werribee line peak service to every 7.5 minutes) is accompanied by major bus routes going to every 15 minutes in peak. This will increase peak bus requirements but acquisitions are necessary because even now some nominally 20 minute routes have 30 minute or more peak gaps.
After that there is a strong case for certain spine routes (like 170) to go to every 10 min 7 days and for there to be a direct north-south connection to the industrial area with Route 400 finishing at Williams Landing instead of Laverton.
The November 7 release advised that information would be available on the Transport Victoria website that day. This proved to be the case for the timetables but the news item describing the changes appeared unavailable until the following day. Even then it wasn't easily accessible.
This is because TV website staff don't always link items to the relevant box tick menus nor test this works after adding content. This causes news items to be uploaded but not indexed, making them inaccessible unless (a) you know the item exists and (b) you do a Google search to find the link. This is what happened last Friday with the news item describing these changes. TV's record is patchy here; the new Route 18 Lara - Avalon bus announced yesterday did get properly indexed so is accessible.
TV's website is run by a complex siloed bureaucracy. One part looks after timetable data (uploaded weekly on Fridays), another part uploads written text content while another does maps. Maps may be passed to stakeholders such as politicians but rarely get uploaded to news items which are overwhelmingly text heavy. An interchange map for example would be highly beneficial given that these changes involve relocated stops at Tarneit station but this is not provided.
Local politicians, notably John Lister (Werribee), Sarah Connolly (Laverton) and Dylan Wight (Tarneit) have actively promoted the bus upgrades on their social media. All are Labor Legislative Assembly members.
Lizzie Blandthorn and Ingrid Stitt, Labor's two Western Metropolitan members, post less on social media and seem quieter on transport matters. This contrasts with non-government Western Metropolitan MLCs such as Moira Deeming, David Ettershank and Trung Luu who have been prominent voices (including asking questions on transport in parliament).
If you were to rate everyone's performance in promotion then the following scores apply:
* Ministerial advisers and media: 6/10 (lose points for inaccuracy and underselling)
* DTP/TV: 3/10 (published timetables but not news item on time, indexing doesn't work, no maps)
* Local Wyndham MPs: 9/10 (very active)
Finishing the job
While it still lacks SmartBus routes such as operate mostly in the east, these upgrades give Wyndham a relatively high number of bus routes that run every 20 minutes or better seven days per week.
However there could still be more given the exceptional ridership productivity of existing services relative to most other suburbs and the lopsidedness of 20 minute service even after these changes (with just one - the 154 - wholly east of Derrimut Rd).
Based on catchment and usage the next tranche of routes that should to go to every 20 min all week should be three in Point Cook (494, 495, 497) and three to Tarneit (150, 152 and 160) with longer hours also desirable to match the recently upgraded routes. Extending 194 to Werribee and a 441 service upgrade should be other early initiatives.
It would be highly desirable if the mid-2026 Metro train timetable (which will boost Werribee line peak service to every 7.5 minutes) is accompanied by major bus routes going to every 15 minutes in peak. This will increase peak bus requirements but acquisitions are necessary because even now some nominally 20 minute routes have 30 minute or more peak gaps.
After that there is a strong case for certain spine routes (like 170) to go to every 10 min 7 days and for there to be a direct north-south connection to the industrial area with Route 400 finishing at Williams Landing instead of Laverton.
The Bus Plan is dead, long live the Bus Plan
Victoria's Bus Plan, released in 2021, had several initiatives such as a switch to 'zero emissions buses' and operator recontrating. But the one that would make the substantive changes to services delivered, and thus the usefulness and usage of buses, was bus service reform with simpler, more direct and more frequent routes.
The substantive detail for this was meant to be in a Bus Reform Implementation Plan. Substantial development work was done on this between early 2022 and late 2023, including three large publicly announced network reviews (Melbourne north, Melbourne north-east and Mildura) and a staged plan going out to 2031. This part of the Bus Plan was presumed and later confirmed dead after tabled documents indicated rejection by Cabinet in late 2023.
The government is putting on a brave face, taking what it may regard as a more flexible posture responding to current needs. Instead of being a defined process of reviews and reform the Bus Plan is now anything in buses the government says it is.
This includes many good things like these Wyndham upgrades but also occasionally mis-steps like the complex 513/514 reform attempt on Bell St (that arose out of a silly dalliance with FlexiRide). That led to unfixed oddities like weekend buses at Bell Station being no more frequent than local routes in the back streets of Moe (in both cases every 40 minutes) despite very different patronage potential.
The pattern of preferring basic route additions and service upgrades matches the historical record; as mentioned here, large plans involving complex reform don't necessarily hold the government's interest for very long. This is even under the Bracks-Brumby government whose successes in buses were considerable.
The most important bus plan of the lot is the state budget. This government has shown signs of recent improvement. The 2025 state budget being better for buses than the weak 2023 and 2024 budgets (particularly in the north and west). Hopefully the 2026 budget will have more; this being pre-election, there still being large backlogs in bus services across Melbourne and the emergence of several community bus campaigns.
Summary
These are a set of welcome bus upgrades. The 154 is possibly the first new or greatly reformed bus route in Melbourne to get 7 day service every 20 minutes or better from its first day since the 893 or 897 in the Cranbourne network reform of 2016. Hopefully it sets a precedent for the standard of bus service introduced in growth areas.
Wyndham's bus routes are typically double the productivity of the Melbourne metropolitan average. Like Craigieburn and Greater Dandenong, Wyndham is the sort of area that you can put new bus services on and people will use them in big numbers.
Of interest is that the catchment of both the new 20 minute all week routes includes significant employment and industrial land uses - not just residential. It will be interesting to see how the usage across the week compares to other routes that have predominantly residential catchments.
The pattern of preferring basic route additions and service upgrades matches the historical record; as mentioned here, large plans involving complex reform don't necessarily hold the government's interest for very long. This is even under the Bracks-Brumby government whose successes in buses were considerable.
The most important bus plan of the lot is the state budget. This government has shown signs of recent improvement. The 2025 state budget being better for buses than the weak 2023 and 2024 budgets (particularly in the north and west). Hopefully the 2026 budget will have more; this being pre-election, there still being large backlogs in bus services across Melbourne and the emergence of several community bus campaigns.
Summary
These are a set of welcome bus upgrades. The 154 is possibly the first new or greatly reformed bus route in Melbourne to get 7 day service every 20 minutes or better from its first day since the 893 or 897 in the Cranbourne network reform of 2016. Hopefully it sets a precedent for the standard of bus service introduced in growth areas.
Wyndham's bus routes are typically double the productivity of the Melbourne metropolitan average. Like Craigieburn and Greater Dandenong, Wyndham is the sort of area that you can put new bus services on and people will use them in big numbers.
Of interest is that the catchment of both the new 20 minute all week routes includes significant employment and industrial land uses - not just residential. It will be interesting to see how the usage across the week compares to other routes that have predominantly residential catchments.
3 comments:
Re: the website search, the timetables weren't available in the search results on Friday either, only via the drop-down menu.
Missed opportunity when MPs were dropping social media posts, people couldn't discover the timetables. One savvy MP already posting the printable version on community Facebook groups and distributing it at community "gathos" (coffee catchups).
Almost every capital has their printed timetables downloadable as PDFs from their websites, why not us? Instead you can only print 20-40 page versions here which show identical timetables for each public holiday and every stop, not just the timing points.
I'd hardly rate Wyndham MPs in their ability to promote a bus service - ultimately, they should be scored on their ability to effectively advocate and to bring in services.
What's most concerning is that you have characters like the Member for Laverton who have advocated for a bus service like the 154 for the better part of five years - and that it's taken a neighbouring seat to go marginal to introduce the service. That's a pretty major concern - Wyndham's tripled in size in the last twenty years and there's been very little movement in the last ten years with regards to frequency and service uplift.
Here's hoping these service improvements are the first of a very quick set of improvements. The Wyndham network needs them...
I think 154 (and one or two other routes) was stymied by certain DTP executives' misguided obsession with FlexiRide around 2022. Had sensible minds prevailed 154 would have been running by now.
It's interesting that growth areas have varied hugely in what they got. Wyndham & Craigieburn have not got as much as it should (especially given strong usage) but nevertheless has done much better than both Melton and Pakenham whose bus networks are structurally little different from c2010. Ditto for Berwick though that's had some new routes layered over old routes.
Wyndham and Cranbourne are about the only growth areas that have the beginnings of a 7 day frequent network (and even then on a few routes) - elsewhere 40-60 min frequencies rule supreme on weekends. Wollert is one to watch - it's been very belated but the govt has steadily upgraded the 390 and hopefully routes that will intersect with it.
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