UN 217: Victoria's Infrastructure Strategy - What's in it for transport?

Another video special, this time on Infrastructure Victoria's 30 year 2025 - 2055 strategy released a few days ago on Tuesday, 11 November 2025. 

IV strongly recommends better use of existing infrastructure including faster and more frequent trains, trams and buses. This is a higher priority than 'Big Build' road and rail projects that have dominated this government's agenda since 2014. However outer suburban rail and inner-middle suburban tram extensions are still recommended to support growth and housing development. The strategy makes some fairly pointed comments about the need for more progress on matters such as PT network accessibility and bus network reform. 

My video below gives you a summary of the strategy, my thoughts and some ideas on where its emphasis could have been stronger. 

The strategy has received significant media coverage including from ABC, Guardian, Australasian Bus & Coach and The Indian Sun (last two with supportive reactions from the Fix Dandy Buses campaign). 

IV is a publicly funded but independent advisory body. It is freer in what it can say than the Department of Transport and Planning but the government can take or leave its recommendations as they see fit. 

After watching the video I recommend reading the strategy and supporting documents. 

See other Useful Network items here
 

TT 217: West's new 7 day 20 minute bus routes start Dec 2025

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.  

What's happening on December 7?

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 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. 

Index to Timetable Tuesday items here

UN 216: Industrial land plan release ignores PT access

 

Imagine a land use plan based on 100 000 new jobs by 2035 but no provision or mention of public transport.

Is this something out of California in 1965? 

No, it's what passes for Victorian land use planning for jobs in 2025. 

Last Sunday on the weekend before the Cup Day public holiday the Victorian state government released a 10 year plan for industrial land. 

It proposed the release of 5800 hectares that would fit up to 100 000 jobs. 

I looked at it to see what it said about public transport access to jobs.

I searched various relevant terms like buses. 

Nothing. 

Public transport access and services is not mentioned once as a consideration for industrial land. 

The plan is apparently the work of the Department of Transport and Planning.

The amalgamated department has a name that implies there is some sort of coordination.

But it doesn't look like any of this happened.

DTP has internal bus and rail planning teams that could have advised on the best locations for PT connectivity. But with zero mention of public transport access it doesn't look like they had input into this plan. This is despite 'integrated planning' being a rationale for merging the transport and planning portfolios.  

Consequences

A 2019 parliamentary inquiry into disadvantaged jobseekers found that transport to commerical and industrial areas was a major issue that held people back. 

Without considering public transport access this land release plan risks being a recipe for 'more of the same' with regards to outer suburban traffic gridlock, few transport choices, high commuting costs and social exclusion. 

We will get more Laverton Norths, Dandenong Souths and Campbellfields with zero or poor public transport connectivity to surrounding suburbs. Except they may be even bigger, less permeable and less accessible. 

Any outer suburbs recruitment agency or transport campaigner knows that transport to industrial area jobs frequently comes up. There are particularly issues with getting apprentices below driving age.

It's relevant for welfare agencies too - charities, food banks and op shops such as Savers and Salvos have increasingly deserted rail-based suburban centres like Ringwood, Frankston and Dandenong in favour of large industrial area locations, typically with inferior public transport.

Today's electorate officers will be tomorrow's politicians. They will be deluged in correspondence asking why there isn't public transport to industrial job areas. 

Including ones that may be in this plan but are perpetually condemned by bad location or geometry that makes efficient public transport access difficult or expensive. If current ministers want to do their proteges a favour they wouldn't be approving planning approaches that just create future problems that can't be fixed without major infrastructure realignments or private property resumptions. 

PT planning for industrial areas

Obviously planning considerations for industrial areas are different to what you might do for an inner suburb like Brunswick or Northcote. Land parcels are bigger and roads need to be wider. 

But you can still avoid the worst mistakes that make a location basically inaccessible. For instance industrial areas should never be on a 'peninsula' or hemmed in between railways, creeks and freeways such that there is access from one direction only. Instead access should be from multiple directions involving regular roads that can support bus stops (as opposed to freeways that cannot). 

An industrial location should preferably be part way between strong termini, destinations and residential catchments. If the industrial area is 'on the way' then direct routes through them become much more viable as they attract some non-industrial patronage and in some cases connect parallel rail lines. Such routes can support useful all day/all week service rather than be infrequent industrial routes with limited peak only service. 

Internally there should be permeable road grids rather than long culs-de-sac for efficient and direct access for walkers and cyclists. Roads should have dual use paths along them on both sides. Shade trees are highly desirable, lessen heat islands and contribute to local biodiversity. All main intersections should be signalised with pedestrian phases.

Locating bus stops near intersections maximises access. Mid-block bus stops on fast roads should have central pedestrian refuges as a minimum to make access earlier. And large roundabouts should be eliminated in favour of signalised intersections (or better still not built at all) to ensure safe predictable wait times for walkers, cyclists and motorists (from side roads).  

Conclusion

Public transport in industrial areas doesn't get the attention it deserves despite the economic and social participation benefits it brings. 

Given the number of jobs the government envisages for its industrial land releases, public transport access should be a major criteria to determine suitability and release sequencing. 

Unfortunately it would appear that the land release plan that got released on Sunday ignored public transport access.

This risks creating problems for the future. Notably a proliferation of remote industrial estates that are impossible to efficiently serve by public transport even if the will to do so exists. 

See other Useful Network items here

A history of Melbourne's bus route numbering

Melbourne's current three digit bus route numbering system started in 1971 when all bus routes got renumbered. The first digit reflects the area or operator with the next two a unique identifier. 

Learn more here:  

There's quite a few other videos on the Melbourne on Transit YouTube channel so watch them too and subscribe. 

2005 flashback: No new rail extensions

TWENTY YEARS AGO today The Age reported that the government planned no major train or tram extensions during the next 15 to 20 years. The first two paragraphs of that article is below.  

The article went on to say that the government's interest was building core capacity through improved signalling and extra track. And that its main metropolitan rail project was a third track to Dandenong (which never got built). Back then time-lines for infrastructure were long - the third track would have a working group report by 2007, a tender initiated in 2008 and completion in 2011. 

In 2005 the state government was interested in regional rather than metropolitan rail. Promises for the latter made in 1999 were largely not delivered with spending instead going towards picking up the pieces from the first version of rail franchising which had collapsed.

However patronage was surging and reliability had been in free-fall since late 2003. The Bracks - Brumby government, which initially thought it could outsource blame to private operator Connex, got kicked out in 2010 before benefits from the improvements it finally funded from about 2008 kicked in. 

We did end up getting some new rail within 20 years with the South Morang extension opening in 2012 and the Regional Rail Link in 2015. However his prophesy regarding tram extensions proved largely correct, with trams very much the 'stagnant mode' apart from minor extensions in Docklands. 

Jump forward to the current time and Betts' successor, DTP Secretary Jeroen Weimar, has downplayed the possibility that we'll see rail electrification to Melton and Wyndham Vale any time soon in a speech given yesterday to the WoMEDA Summit. 

UN 215: What makes bus plans succeed (or fail)?

Executive summary: Too many plans for bus upgrades fail. Strike while the iron is hot - make yours succeed by having it ready to fund when political will is highest. And always choose a staged program of quick wins with well-sold successes over cumbrous reviews that are rarely completed before political will and funding evaporate.      

"If only we had an integrated transport plan" you hear some cry. It is an article of faith amongst transport planning professionals that Melbourne should have an integrated transport plan. Not only that but it is mandated in the Transport Integration Act 2010. 

The Auditor-General called out the government for not having such an overarching plan back in 2021. The government rejects this by saying it has a lot of smaller plans and pointing to their record infrastructure spend, overwhelmingly on a small number of very large road and rail projects. 

Many economists, academics and transport planning professionals distrust the current government's project-first approach. Some privately consider that more planning could have got better value for money. However unless retired or otherwise financially independent they are too dependent on government employment or contracts to look a gift horse in the eye. 

Others in urban planning and housing have different views. They contend that projects like the Suburban Rail Loop are exactly what we need as for too long transport has lagged rather than shaped development. This government agrees, with it describing the SRL as both a transport and urban planning project. Preferring to get their advice from elsewhere, they have basically sidelined what you might call the old transport planning establishment, possibly due to past bad experiences when they did trust the department. DTP and its predecessors have also had periods of pretty uninspiring leadership since.    

That debate is not today's topic though. Instead I'm more interested in whether the plans that exist succeeded or failed. That's important because there's many smart and engaged people who invest a lot of energy into saying "we need a plan" only for numerous said plans to gather dust, unloved and largely unimplemented. 

Even comprehensive plans may hold the government's interest for a couple of years before priorities shift. Conversely there are initiatives that don't seem to be part of a wider plan yet get done and are successful.   

Various plans

I'll run through the plans that cover buses but will veer into trains and trams occasionally as well. 

* 1988 MetPlan

Unfortunate timing contributed to making this plan, which had many good features, fail. Within eighteen months of its release the state's public finances were in crisis and there were cuts not boosts. The minister's claim that a commitment to improvement had replaced the atmosphere of decline and decay soon proved false.  However some of the directions in it (eg orbital buses) did end up happening much later. 

* 2006 Meeting Our Transport Challenges

While covering all modes of transport, the most enduring part of Peter Batchelor's MOTC was a program of bus service additions that has never been equalled since. The three main bus components were: 

* Service upgrades and extensions for local routes, notably the addition of Sunday and evening service (to 9pm) through a program of minimum service standards. 

* Expansion of the SmartBus network featuring more frequent service and longer hours on key routes, especially orbitals.  

* A series of local area bus network reviews across Melbourne. 

MOTC can claim to be the most successful metropolitan bus plan of those reviewed here. Receiving its first serious funding in the 2005 state budget upgrades continued to be rolled out until 2010 (when the government lost office). However momentum slowed from about 2008 as political priorities switched to fixing rail's numerous problems. About 60 to 70% of the minimum service upgrades and SmartBus was implemented with patronage rising in step with service. 

The local area bus network reviews took a fair while to do. They were the least successful bus component of MOTC with only about 20% of recommendations implemented as funding was drying up when the reports were completed. 

* 2012 Network Development Plan (Metropolitan Rail) 

While a rail service plan with an aim to get all lines to run simpler connected timetables that were either ever 10 minutes (main lines) or 20 minutes (branch lines) all day, the NDP (Metropolitan Rail) did include a multimodal coordination framework that included a service hierarchy for buses. This included main routes every 10 minutes and other important routes operating every 20 minutes to mesh evenly with trains and trams. 

There was never a publicly released NDP (Metropolitan Bus). But there was significant bus network reform along principles that would likely have been in such a plan. This included a radical new bus network in Point Cook that started when Williams Landing Station opened in 2013. 27 July 2014 was a particular high point with major bus network reforms for Brimbank, Melbourne Airport, the south-east and the Transdev network. No other day since has seen a comparable large change to buses across so many areas. 

One effect of this was an increase in the number of bus routes operating every 20 minutes as I discussed here. Since that item was written (2019) there have been further additions to the '20 minute club' with service boosts on buses in Fishermans Bend, Craigieburn and Werribee. Fishermans Bend even gained two routes every 10 minutes on weekdays. 

As for the rail component, that was moving forward until 2014. But it got a major setback in 2015 as the new government ditched all interest in metropolitan service uplifts in favour of infrastructure builds. However small elements of it were implemented on 31 January 2021. And the 10/20 min pattern will guide the planning of the Metro Tunnel timetable from 1 February 2026 along with the mid 2026 timetables for Sandringham (every 10 min maximum waits weekdays), Craigieburn and Upfield (maximum 20 minute waits). 

* 2014 Labor's plan for Victoria's Bus Network 

Unlike the other plans this one was developed by a political party as an election policy. In this case by Labor who won that year's state election. It was somewhat patchy with the specifics favouring outer suburbs around Cranbourne and Epping. A relatively high proportion of promises were implemented, as discussed here. 

* 2015 Transdev Greenfields bus network 

Unlike the first stage implemented in July 2014, this bold plan that included splitting the SmartBus orbitals never got implemented. It was not without strengths but poor public consultation, development by a single operator without reference to other operator's routes and service cuts in some areas were significant flaws. Developed under the previous Coalition government the proposal was scrapped by new minister Jacinta Allan who would be less accepting of bus network reform than her predecessor.  

* 2016 Regional Network Development Plan

While the public transport record of the post 2014 Labor government has overwhelmingly been about building infrastructure rather than adding service, this is really only the case in metropolitan Melbourne. 

All four of the last Labor premiers can claim a stronger personal attachment to regional Victoria than areas like Tarneit, Craigieburn and Dandenong. The public transport agenda of this government is overwhelmingly driven by a vision of statewide equity. That is you get the same flat fare cap to travel on services that are at least every hour (and increasingly every 40 minutes) across Melbourne and major regional cities. 

A consequence of this is that when infrastructure is upgraded you are far more likely to get a large rail service uplift on regional lines than you are on metropolitan lines. Not only that but when regional lines like Ballarat and Gippsland have their timetables upgraded there are cascading upgrades for buses including service additions. This typically does not happen for metropolitan timetable changes which may get (at best) minor cost-neutral bus timetable tweaks as part of 'recoordination' (not that some routes were necessarily coordinated to start off with!). 

A consequence of this approach is that regional areas get service upgrades whereas outer metropolitan areas (many in historically taken for granted Labor 'safe' seats) do not despite metropolitan routes having higher patronage productivity. The most recent Gippsland bus upgrades have been so great that at midday on a weekend the back streets of Moe gets buses as frequent as busy Bell Street near Bell Station (in both cases a 40 minute frequency). Such Moe routes also run 7 days unlike routes in similar low income but metropolitan neighbourhoods like Campbellfield and Dandenong North. Major routes have similar disparities; Route 1, the Latrobe Valley intertown route is now every 20 minutes on weekends versus 30, 40 and 60 minute gaps on main highway Melbourne bus routes on weekends.  

Regional service provision remains with some gaps (Wodonga, Shepparton and Mildura still need town bus network reform and upgrades) but the general story for regional network development is one of major investment in public transport service that has exceeded that applied in major parts of metropolitan Melbourne, especially on a per-capita basis. Consequently the Regional Network Development Plan can be considered the one bus and train service-related plan that has had unwavering support for almost the entire life of this government. 

* 2021 Victoria's Bus Plan

This plan was released in 2021 by the enthusiastic minister Ben Carroll. There were initial signs of renewed interest, including before the 2022 state election with major bus network reviews for Melbourne's north, north-east and Mildura publicly announced. About two years of planning work was done but Cabinet scrapped the reviews in late 2023 with other priorities apparently being more important. 

While there have been some bus service improvements, there haven't been nearly as many as under the much more successful MOTC plan of 2006. Network reform is slower too, especially when compared to the pace achieved during the 2013 - 2014 era when both PTV leadership and the minister were supportive. Victoria's Bus Plan may well inspire future large service upgrades and reform like MetPlan did. But until this happens it can reasonably be regarded as a failure.  

* 2023 Melbourne's Tram Plan

There's been developments regarding the new G Class trams and the Maribyrnong depot but little has been said or funded on the service side with the plan being fairly vague. Some tram service boosts have happened but DTP is weak at promoting them. Trams' low political profile may be partly because both major parties consider outer suburbs more important than inner suburbs with a Labor example below:    

Summary and success tips

There have been several attempts to reform bus services over the last four decades. Success has varied. 

It is common for the government to lose interest within two years of a plan being released. The 1988 and 2021 plans were the biggest victims of such changing budgetary and political priorities. 

The 2006 MOTC plan was subject to similar forces but not before large parts were implemented. An early emphasis on simple service upgrades (such as seven day service) and a minister able to secure Cabinet approval for substantial budget funding out to 2010 contributed to its success. 

While it didn't have a lot of detail, the Regional Network Development Plan stands out as being the one that has retained political support the longest. I suspect this has a lot to do with the central role of regional Victoria in Labor's leadership with vocal support for fishing and acceptance of recreational hunting part of the same "see, we're not inner-city Greens" political thinking exemplified by leaders or their close relatives.    

Lower budget 2010s era bus network reforms were done without an overarching plan, although there was a planning culture in the then PTV. They succeeded due to supportive leadership in the PTV bureaucracy (under Ian Dobbs) and at ministerial level (by Terry Mulder). 

PTV successfully implemented Labor's 2014 plans after the change of government. But present a more radical proposal to a more wary minister and bus reform can die, like happened with the scrapped 2015 Transdev network. Especially if the department gets to be led by people who cannot sell public and political benefits.  

Even a plan to revive bus reform (as done in 2021) might fail if it proposes a strategy that takes too long to make the first steps, bites off more than it can chew, cannot be scaled, is potentially controversial, is not well sold by the department and/or lacks premier and Cabinet support. 

People can spend a lot of effort lobbying for 'a transport plan'. But the record of implementation when we've had such plans has been mixed. Even successful plans rarely hold the interest of their political masters for more than a couple of years before something else captures their attention and budgets. The rare exceptions resonate politically with the government, for instance the priority this one gives to certain provincial areas. 

Otherwise time is of the essence. By all means have a plan but develop it quickly. Be clear in what you want. Be able to implement quickly. Get as much funding locked in as early as you can.

Do the 3 Ms: Market Upgrades, Measure Results and Message Success to build political capital for future stages. Have a Secretary who can argue a case and a minister with weight in Cabinet. As seen recently, squandering the precious first two years on ponderous reviews risks nothing being done as political priorities change and funding interest wanes. 

And even if the prevailing political environment does not have much interest in an overarching plan or tip in much new funding it is still possible for good bus reform to happen with the right leadership in the department and a supportive minister.  

Index to other Useful Network items here

TT 216: 86 & 96's undersold tram service upgrade

Last weekend marked the commencement of upgraded timetables for tram routes 86 and 96. 

The upgrades, which Transport Victoria meekly described as run(ning) more often at busy times, reduced  waiting times on the busier evenings and early Sunday mornings. That's important because Melbourne trams have traditionally dropped to every 20 minutes at night and 30 minutes on Sunday mornings and evenings. This is even on routes (like 86 and 96) that serve destinations (like St Kilda) that are busy right when trams are at their least frequent, especially in the warmer months. 

The informal nine hour rule stipulates that (especially on weekends) even our major train, tram and bus lines operate frequently for a minority of the time and definitely not at night. Like restricted Sunday morning timetables it is a planning and operating culture most pervasive in Melbourne for reasons going back a century. Sydney does not suffer from it to anywhere near the same extent with their trains (for example) running every 15 minutes or better for almost 20 hours a day all week. 

The 86 and 96 tram timetable changes, like the Metro Tunnel timetable for Watergardens - Dandenong starting next February, represent a small loosening of this rule to suit modern wider span travel and working patterns. It's a substantial win for peoples' access to jobs, events and tourism, which has long been hamstrung by infrequent evening and weekend timetables. That's even on trams, which is the mode closest to having a turn-up and go service during most daylight hours.  

The Public Transport Users Association praised the upgrades on its Facebook page as follows:

As PTUA mentions the 30 minute Sunday evening gaps remain in place. However they didn't specifically mention the Sunday morning boosts. These improve frequency from every 30 to every 15 to 20 minutes.

While they are only a few extra trips per week they significantly improve the convenience of catching these tram routes as well as the network more generally when connections are involved. And given the rarity of tram frequency upgrades (tram service kilometres have actually declined on a per capita basis in the last 20 years) it is historically significant too. 

Promotion

How has what is a very good service upgrade been promoted?

Yarra Trams mentioned the upgrade once on their Facebook page. This linked to the Transport Victoria website item. 

The operator did what they were required to do - since the Metlink days marketing for public transport services has typically been the job of what you might call the integrated transport brand, agency or department (ie Metlink, PTV and now TV/DTP).

Below is what appeared on the Transport Victoria website (click for a better view or see). 

Vague and underwhelming, isn't it? With zero appeal to any passenger segment likely to benefit. 

Transport Victoria's Facebook page had no mention at all, not even just before the weekend the upgraded timetable started.  Nothing on their Instagram or YouTube either. Local MPs like Nina Taylor whose Albert Park seat benefits thus had nothing to share on their social media. DTP's inertia here meant that a great opportunity to generate political capital was lost with this being just one of many cases.  

Whereas if this was a transport infrastructure project like the Metro Tunnel or even a local level crossing removal there would be all sorts of 'sneak peek' open days, community festival attendances, show bags,  coffee vouchers, social media, staff to explain, exquisitely-staged sequential messaging and more. You wouldn't hear the end of it. 

A huge contrast, even allowing for the differences in project sizes and budgets. 

A matter of leadership

In my view this comes down to leadership.

Major infrastructure project agencies have CEOs who understand the need to know and sell benefits to win public goodwill. Executives are also cognizant of the need for the government to feel that a project has built it political capital. This leads to the project being considered a success and for governments to complete it and then fund more like it.   

In contrast transport service planning projects had Paul Younis. 

Mr Younis led DTP for most of the last seven years. Amongst his virtues, communications and sales ability are not necessarily the first that spring to mind. Neither did he exude a patronage growth mindset, even pre-pandemic. Some department staff do value promotion and patronage but this would have to come from their own reasoning rather than be reinforced by the Secretary.

The public promise of major bus network reform only for it to be rejected by Cabinet in late 2023 may or may not have been for reasons to do with Mr Younis. 

However it is beyond doubt that under his watch DTP has been habitually poor at promoting previous public transport service upgrades. This would not assist government MPs (including Cabinet ministers) see community benefits or political capital in such added services. That might reduce goodwill towards supporting future service improvements, especially amongst non-transport portfolio ministers who have issues in their own department they would want funded first. 

Jeroen Weimar has led DTP for nearly 9 months. 

In that period there has been a rebranding from PTV to TV. 

However, as proved just recently with the 86 and 96 tram upgrades, the general DTP culture when it comes to promoting what should be good news service additions appears unchanged from the stagnant years of Younis. 

That can not and should not continue. 

Instead Mr Weimar might do well to push new thinking in the department so that DTP stops being viewed as a less favoured 'B team' punching below its weight when compared to the infrastructure project construction bodies. The government's rhetoric of 'switching on the Big Build' has even been favourable since the time Ben Carroll was minister but DTP has so far made nothing of it. 

Such renewal could include a rediscovery of the importance of promotion to build success and then political capital for more service by kick-starting a virtuous cycle such as below. 

Secondly DTP needs to become a trusted delivery partner with improved capacity to reliably deliver service upgrades as soon as possible after they are budgeted. Unlike its promotion efforts DTP has made progress with small bus service upgrades done much quicker today than two years ago. However it still needs better processes for larger additions or reforms. It remains extraordinary that Melbourne takes more time to add or reform bus routes than doing complex capital works like removing level crossings and building new stations.    

Thirdly, if achieving the above requires a refresh of DTP executive ranks then so be it. Opportunities may exist with Silver Review executive thinning. Though one must be careful that this does not force the better people out earlier, leading to regress not progress from the 'left behinds'.

See other Timetable Tuesday items here

Coalition serves up new shadow PT minister

Last week the Coalition announced a new shadow cabinet. The most significant change for those following public transport has been Sam Groth taking over from Matthew Guy as shadow minister for public transport. Also notable is that Matthew Guy takes over major projects from Evan Mulholland. That includes the Suburban Rail Loop East, which will almost certainly be past the point of no return by the 2026 election if it isn't already.   

Success requires work

Government ministers are pretty much forced to put in a certain minimum amount of effort. In government there is a department to run, bucket loads of correspondence, decisions to make and questions to answer. There's a lot of structure and if you don't perform there's others who want your job. 

Whereas if you are an opposition shadow minister how (or how much) you do your job is more up to you. Especially if you have enough seniority or party standing to guarantee your position. 

Either you just coast along or, lacking the staff and departmental resources of government, work harder than your opponent minister to develop policy, expose mismanagement and generally hold them to account. Maintaining such energy may be harder if party morale is low, although the best people are driven internally or consider it their mission. 

Measuring the productivity of individual politicians is difficult. Some policies are team affairs so to attribute credit (or blame) on one person may be unfair. You can use quantitative measures like questions asked but that doesn't necessarily imply quality or impact. Still, scale is important; if you don't do the quantity then quality has little impact if the matter is narrow or trifling. 

Questions asked

Earlier this year I analysed who asked the most questions on transport matters in parliament. As expected opposition members asked more on average than government members. There were also differences between the houses, possibly as the Legislative Council is a house of review and in which governments rarely hold a majority.

If you use questions asked as a criteria the Coalition's best performers sit in the Legislative Council. Some of their Legislative Assembly colleagues pull their weight but not all. Matthew Guy has been a particular disappointment in this term, asking just seven questions on transport, despite this being one of his shadow portfolios. 

Does being an active parliamentary questioner help promotion prospects in Brad Battin's Coalition team? It seemed to help. The three new October 2025 entrants to the Shadow Cabinet (Nicole Werner, Richard Welch and Nick McGowan) were all above average question askers. 

Media releases

Asking questions isn't the only thing an opposition member can do to hold the government to account, especially if they are shadow minister. Media releases is another. The Liberals have all theirs (and some from their Nationals coalition partners) from 2023 here. 

The number of releases per year for transport and planning related topics is graphed below. Coalition interest in public transport (if measured by media releases) has crashed, with just 5 issued in 2025 to date compared to 20 in 2023. Interest in roads is also less than in 2023. Release volumes in Planning and Housing peaked in 2024 while 2025 has been a top year for releases on major projects. 

The topicality of issues as well as the shadow minister involved likely affects the volume of releases (noting that we are only measuring output, not whether the media runs with it).

I used Parliament's website as a source of portfolios held and tabulated them below. Click for a better view.  

Not all releases in a portfolio are from that shadow minister - other senior members may also issue releases on a topic. Radio interviews or social media posts may not be captured. Still, one can discern clear links between people and media release output. For example Richard Riordan in Public Transport, James Newbury in Planning and Evan Mulholland in Major Projects rank amongst the more active.

Conversely Matthew Guy, public transport's recent shadow, has been associated with a diminishing and now low level of media release activity. Which (unhelpfully for the Coalition's profile in transport) matches inactivity in Question Time mentioned before. 

Opportunities to roast the government on areas where it is vulnerable (such as inadequate public transport services including for major events, abandoned bus reform, continual rail shutdowns and rolling bus strikes) have conspicuously gone unexploited, much to the minister's joy. 

Others on public transport

Mr Guy has not been the sole or even dominant voice from the Coalition side on public transport.

Liberal MLCs in areas that are almost entirely represented by Labor in the lower house have a particular opportunity. This has been exploited by Evan Mulholland in Northern Metropolitan and Moira Deeming in Western Metropolitan. Some regional MPs have also been prominent. 

Trung Luu in Western Metropolitan is less publicly known but had a major recent success in getting numerous internal DTP documents tabled, thus exposing the government's ditching of promised bus  plan network reform. Such bus reform could have increased patronage by about 80 million passenger trips per year by 2030, making it bigger than what we think of as being major projects such as North-East Link, West Gate Tunnel and the Suburban Rail Loop East. 

I should also mention others supporting bus upgrades in the underserved Dandenong area before the government latched on. That includes the 2022 state and 2023 Mulgrave by-election plus more recent supportive speeches from Ann-Marie Hermans. 

The consistent pattern is that a backbencher may say or get something something in parliament but without weight, support and persistence from the shadow minister the matter just dies. Or, at best, such as happened in the 2022 state election campaign the Coalition had a significant bus service policy but it didn't get the promotion it deserved.     

The new shadow

On 11 October 2025 incoming shadow Public Transport Minister Sam Groth issued a statement on his Facebook page welcoming his appointment to the role. That statement included mention of the lack of public transport options in his seat of Nepean that he wanted to address as a priority. 

His prior record includes asking 11 questions on transport matters. Not the most active but not the least active either. And more questions than then public transport's shadow minister. 

From December 2022 to October 2025 Mr Groth held a range of shadow tourism, sport and recreation portfolios. This matched his sporting background and his seat of Nepean. While normally a junior portfolio sport has been particularly prominent given the government's bungling of the 2026 Commonwealth Games bid. This contributed to a high amount of media release activity from him. 

His prior question and media release activity give some hope that we might hear more from the Coalition on public transport in the next year than we have in the last two.

Also Mr Groth can take heart from the fact that despite the political fashion to declare oneself a gunzel, this is not a pre-requisite for success and could even be a hindrance. Instead, as he may have already learned in sport, there is no substitute for the will to work and win for success in public transport politics. 

UN 214: 15 years since Melbourne's first 10 minute frequent Metro timetable

 

Executive summary: Today marks 15 years since the first every 10 minute off-peak Metro train line started in Melbourne. We've only added one more all week turn-up-and-go line since. But with the Metro Tunnel starting soon, there's prospects for the next decade to have more in store.  

There's been a lot of Metro Tunnel discussion this week.

But today I want to talk about the transformative timetable that arguably started it all. Commencing 15 years ago today, it introduced passengers to the idea that you could rock up at a station in the middle of the day and have a train within 10 minutes.

Every 10 minutes is the sort of frequency that would induce people to 'turn up and go' and not worry too much about timetables. And for Melbourne, where 15, 20, 30 and even 40 minute midday metropolitan train frequencies were (and still are) the norm, it marked a big break from the past in the traditionally slow-moving world of rail network planning. 

Faster change was driven by surging patronage taxing a fragile and unreliable metropolitan rail network that frequently made headlines for the wrong reasons. Off-peak train timetables were last significantly upgraded in the 1990s with particular gains for Sandringham, Frankston, Pakenham/Cranbourne, Alamein and Upfield on weekdays and network-wide on Sundays (in 1999). They had been stagnant for nearly a decade since. 

That drought ended, firstly with shoe-horning extra peak trips into existing timetables and then some wider rethinking that addressed root issues. Here's a look at what happened when.   

2009

It was thought that operationally grouping lines to isolate disruptions would improve reliability. An early example was the 2009 Werribee timetable that took their trains out of a crowded City Loop portal that was shared with the then Sydenham, Craigieburn and Upfield lines.

As this was viewed as potentially controversial some extra off-peak trips (running express) were added as sweeteners. That proved successful - Werribee trains were removed from the loop with minimal controversy and ultimately improved reliability. While the extra trips resulted in Werribee (for a time) having 6 trains per hour interpeak on weekdays the intervals were irregular so it never qualified as a true 10 minute service. 

2010

The honour of being the first instead went to Frankston with the timetable for that starting 15 years ago today. Frankston was neither then nor now the busiest line on the network. If you were going to introduce a 10 minute service on any one corridor then picking Ringwood or Dandenong would have benefited more passengers. However the Frankston line was unreliable and politically sensitive. And if you were planning wider network reforms then, like succeeded with Werribee, some increased frequency could be a sweetener. 

So it came to be that on October 10, 2010 the Frankston line gained increased weekday off-peak frequencies. Services improved from every 15 to every 10 minutes between the peaks and from every 30 to every 20 minutes for much of the evening. 

For more background on this see the 2019 retrospective that I wrote on this timetable's 9th birthday. 

2011

While trains ran a regular every 10 minutes between Frankston and Richmond, they had a messy alternating pattern beyond there. Half ran via the City Loop (as all previously did when service was every 15 minutes) and the other half went direct to Flinders Street. So if you were coming from the CBD end you did not have the benefit of a consistent 10 minute timetable. 

That required another timetable to fix. This happened on May 9, 2011 with my 8th anniversary item on that here. This effectively created the cross-city group with trains every 10 minutes between Frankston and Newport (before fanning out).

In theory you could jump on a train at a station like South Yarra or Richmond and have a one-seat ride through the CBD to North Melbourne, Footscray, Newport or beyond. Not only that but it would be a turn-up-and-go service thanks to the 10 minute frequency. This would provide the sort of cross-city access that passengers in cities such as Sydney, Perth and Brisbane routinely enjoyed (as did Melbourne though at lower frequencies before the City Loop).

It's a great idea but the doctrine that 'every train terminates at Flinders Street' remains embedded in operating culture and passenger information so transposals and inconsistencies in information remain common.

Credit however should be given as the timetable changes above reduced interactions and knock-on delays. They contributed to a huge rebound in metropolitan rail reliability. An almost continuous 8 year fall between 2003 and 2011 was arrested with vastly better reliability by 2013. 

2012

The next frequency upgrade was not (as you might expect) weekdays on busy corridors like Ringwood and Dandenong but weekends on those lines plus Frankston. Introduced in April 2012, new timetables upgraded weekend service from every 20 to every 10 minutes to the above between 10am and 7pm. That 10am - 7pm slot actually originated with the 1999 Kennett era Sunday upgrades which boosted service in that 9 hour span but not outside it. 

Weekend evening services remained at every 30 minutes, with a sharp fall-off after 7pm. 30 minute gaps also remained on Sunday mornings with sleepy ~8am starts not addressed until Night Network started in 2016 (though they remain an issue on Good Friday and most Christmas mornings when Night Network doesn't run). 

After this change Frankston became the first line to enjoy a 10 minute daytime frequency on all days of the week. Dandenong and Ringwood also had this but only on weekends. 

NDP

The Network Development Plan (Metropolitan Rail) of December 2012 proposed a program to spread 10 minute Frankston-style frequent all day timetables across the network. Had it been followed the busiest lines would have got frequent service by 2016 with most of the rest done by 2021. The Metro Tunnel would thus have commenced in a context where lines feeding to it were already running frequently all week. 

2014 

The very large bus, train and tram timetable upgrade of 27 July 2014 also included the Dandenong line going from every 15 to 10 minutes on weekdays interpeak with Pakenham and Cranbourne going from 30 to 20 minutes. By that time Dandenong had become the busiest line, overtaking Ringwood. This was a well-received upgrade with Dandenong joining Frankston as being being one of Melbourne's two long rail corridors with seven day frequent service (though weekend evenings and Sunday morning service remained limited at every 30 minutes). 

2015 - 2025 (a lost decade for service)

There was a change of government late in 2014. 

Political interest swung from service to infrastructure builds, unlike Sydney which managed to do both. 

No major rail corridors gained 10 minute 7 day service. 

This made 2015 - 2025 virtually a lost decade for service, with large scale frequency upgrades for metropolitan rail, metropolitan tram and bus reform all basically stalling, particularly after 2016 (V/Line trains and regional buses got a lot though). 

2026 - 

The next year is already looking more promising than the last decade.

At least one more line will get frequent 7 day service. This will be the Sunbury line (as far as Watergardens) in February 2026 when full service on the Metro Tunnel starts. 

This will be followed (in mid 2026) when the Sandringham line goes to every 10 minutes on weekdays. This upgrade will be integrated with a restored cross-city line to Newport and beyond. Craigieburn and Upfield will have maximum waits cut from 40 to 20 minutes while Werribee will gain some peak upgrades. 

Much more roll-out of 10 minute 7 day service is needed just to catch up on the previous lost decade.

There's been no announcements or even promises. I would suggest these as the top five front-runners (in about this order):

* Ringwood: busy line, marginal seats, needs peak stopping pattern reform, very poor Belgrave and Lilydale frequencies, cheap to do as weekends mostly already done. 

* Craigieburn: busy but currently infrequent, outstanding from Metro Tunnel business case, growth area pressures. 

* Mernda: high usage potential but currently infrequent, large densifying catchment, growth area pressures. 

* Werribee: good usage, potential to relieve busy Geelong line, potential speed boosts, growth area pressures. 

* Sandringham: requires finishing off with frequent weekend service and Sunday am boost.  

Let's hope they happen! 

Index to other Useful Network items here

Metro Tunnel opening - What's happening when?

Yesterday we were told the most important date associated with the Metro Tunnel. 

Sunday, February 1, 2026 

This is the first day that a full service timetable will operate on Metro Tunnel stations. 

The government is calling it The Big Switch. 

Sunbury and Pakenham/Cranbourne line trains will shift out of separate City Loop portals to being joined via five new stations at Arden, Parkville, State Library, Town Hall and Anzac. That will form a through line underneath the CBD with frequent service. 

How frequent? We are told every 3 to 4 minutes in peak periods. Not a lot different to now, especially from the Dandenong side. I would expect that there will be some use of the West Footscray turnback. 

Outside peaks a service will operate every 10 minutes or better from first to last train between West Footscray and Dandenong stations. That's good for suburbs like Dandenong but is a bit light on for the inner core where a 5 minute service would be much more compatible with Metro-style high volume short trip needs. Without such a frequent core you can't really do tram reform and thus reap the full cascading benefits of the Metro Tunnel project.  

East of Dandenong trains are likely to alternate between East Pakenham and Cranbourne, to provide the outer portions with a 20 minute service. That compares to now where gaps can be 30 minutes at night and as long as 70(!) minutes on Sunday mornings. The other great thing is that forced transfers will be pretty much a thing of the past for Pakenham and Cranbourne passengers with the trunk almost always double the frequency of the branches.

Something that's not clear is Night Network. If they stick with the network-wide hourly frequency then that could feature hourly trains from Sunbury to either East Pakenham or Cranbourne with the other line getting a shuttle from Dandenong. Although if they were feeling generous then they could avoid that by running a half-hourly service to Dandenong with trains alternating east.   

On the west side some trains will terminate at West Footscray, some at Watergardens and others at the end of the line at Sunbury. The termini will alternate between Sunbury and Watergardens most of the time, with Sunbury generally getting a 20 minute service and Watergardens a 10 minute service. 

However the latter won't be to last train; in something bound to annoy after 9pm travellers half the trains will finish at West Footscray. Hence the premier's media release saying that the frequent service to Watergardens is 6am to 9pm only. Still, the every 20 minute late evening frequency that Tottenham - Sunbury will get is better than the current 30 minute gaps.  

You need to be aware that this is a government whose record is to love spending on capex (ie building stuff) but hate opex (ie running stuff). Largely as new hospitals and stations can be built on borrowed money and opened with ribbons while nurses and service frequency need funds raised from taxes (or efficiencies) and are less visible.

A period of low interest rates made the skew even more notable, though it is probably fair to say that without it the Metro Tunnel that we can talk about today would not have been built. But conversely it meant that various attempts to add service hatched within the department (eg 2012's Network Development Plan (Metropolitan Rail), the 2016 Metro Tunnel Business Case and bus reform in 2015 and 2023) were either canned entirely or happened in much reduced form. Sydney, in contrast, continued to invest in frequency, leading to a widening Sydney - Melbourne gap in public transport service levels.  

Having said that the need for better service over longer 7 day spans is an enduring truth that occasionally sees the light of day, even if behaves like a recessive gene compared to infrastructure builds. One such understanding is the 14 hour rule - that is public transport should operate at a relatively high frequency for about 14 hours a day, every day. That is significantly better than current rail timetabling practice (particular on weekends) where even our best served lines see frequent service for only about 9 hours (comparing unfavourably with both Perth and Sydney).

When DTP is asked to plan things you sometimes do get longer periods of frequent service specified or happening. The Metro Tunnel Business Case (which was heavily informed by the NDP) typically specified 10 minute service on main lines for all but late night periods. And recently tabled bus reform documents define a 6am to 10pm (actually 16 hours) core period where rapid and connector buses should run every 10 minutes. While that plan's bold bus reforms were rejected, the idea of running frequent service for more of the day did guide some things that did happen.

Notable recent examples that continued relatively frequent service into the mid-evening include bus upgrades like for 905 and 907 in Manningham, 170, 180 and 192 in Wyndham, and most recently a selection of Craigieburn routes funded in the 2025 state budget.

You'll be able to add the Metro Tunnel to that next year. Tottenham to Watergardens will enjoy a 10 min or better service from 6am to 9pm. That is 15 hours which while inferior to Dandenong (18 hours) and Sydney (20 hours) still beats any Melbourne line today (including Frankston).    

It's not just the Sunbury, Pakenham and Cranbourne lines that are changing. 

A big justification for the Metro Tunnel is the cascading effect where it frees up capacity. In this case the Frankston line returns to operating via the City Loop, like it did 15 or so years ago. Like the Pakenham and Cranbourne line it will be running anti-clockwise all day. 

The February 1 2026 changes are summarised on the Big Build website and below. 

The 1000 weekly services on the Sunbury line largely comprise off-peak frequency boosts that add 3 trains per hour each way as far as Watergardens to double frequency from 20 to 10 minutes. Half of those will extend to Sunbury, doubling their 40 minute frequency to 20 minutes. Evenings also gain an upgrade from every 30 minutes to every 20 minutes at worst and every 10 minutes at best. There will likely be some Sunday morning uplifts improving to 20 minute maximum waits. 

The 100 extra weekly services at the Dandenong end will largely be additions to cut maximum waits to 20 minutes for Pakenham and Cranbourne. The main times to benefit are after 7pm weekends and Sunday mornings. As an example improving from 30 to 20 minutes requires 1 train each way per hour extra. Multiply by 2 (for return trip) and by 2 again (for both lines), then by 10 (for number of week you are upgrading) and you get 40. Fixing up early weekend mornings and adding shoulder peaks would likely get you to 100, noting that counting trains is a poor measure as lengthening runs to avoid transfers and improve frequencies from Dandenong inwards is not rewarded.   

There may be other changes but they're not mentioned above (or on the interactive map), even though they have been the subject of public announcements. I'm talking about things like already funded Werribee, Craigieburn, Upfield and Sandringham timetable upgrades. And also what happens to the generally neglected but potentially convenient cross-city group (which shows as broken on the map in this video). More on them later. 

December 2025

The next date, though sooner, isn't known precisely yet. But we do know it will be in early December 2025.

That was announced yesterday at 7:01am via social media. That's the exact same time and means that the Suburban Rail Loop was announced in 2018.

Major rail openings involving the public most commonly take place on a Sunday so December 7 is a likely hot favourite, though checks and sign-off need to be done first.

The government is calling this the Summer Start, that is the commencement of public services through the Metro Tunnel. You could call it a 'soft opening'. Basically a limited frequency, limited hours service mainly for testing but also for the curious to see the new stations for themselves.

It's a showground ride more than serious transport but it helps people get used to navigating the new stations and features new to Melbourne such as platform screen doors. Timed to suit Christmas shopping, it might even draw people into the city and allows the government to claim that they opened the Metro Tunnel early.

All these have benefits but as I say it's not practical transport for most. For that you should keep using existing services on existing timetables as you currently do.  

The government will be hoping that there will be minimal disruption to existing travel patterns as the new trips will operate in addition to existing unchanged routing and timetables on all lines.

Two months of free statewide weekend travel will be offered, starting from when the Metro Tunnel opens in early December.  

Mid 2026

Now we move to a mid-2026 date that the government is even vaguer about. Indeed it's not in the media release. To the contrary, that leads one to the view that everything will be happening on February 1 2026 with quotes like "A new timetable will be in place everywhere – including buses, trams, regional and metropolitan trains".

However The Age carried an article stressing a third, mid-2026 timetable change with more service improvements. 

These may well include the May 2025 state budget upgrades, including peak boosts for Werribee,  and reduced maximum waits for Craigieburn and Upfield. 

A Sandringham line weekday upgrade to 10 min frequencies was also funded. That would be frequency harmonised with lines from the west such as Werribee and Williamtown. And it would partly compensate South Yarra station for the frequency it lost when Dandenong trains were rerouted to skip it.

This is one of the big uncertainties of the Metro Tunnel project - will the cross-city service continue beyond February 1 or will it be broken (with all trains terminating at Flinders Street) only to be potentially restored mid-year? Not taking it seriously may be one of those cases where operational ease may take a higher priority than passenger convenience.

An up side, as I noted here, the Metro Tunnel experience of seamless cross-city travel, something that Melbourne has so much more difficulty than other cities in mastering, may force an expectation that the cross-city group should be more seamlessly and reliably operated. There is also hope in that the network map the minister is holding in this Reddit thread has a Werribee - Sandringham line in a uniform pink colour, unlike this Metro Tunnel video whose map has them separate.  

It may also be that at least some of the "new timetable in place everywhere" may be implemented in the mid-year tranche rather than 1 February, though again we don't know. The government is talking up the effort this involves. But unless there is a mystery bucket of money it is unlikely that recoordination can be any more than minor tweaks here and there. Although you never know - the recent Ballarat and Gippsland line bus recoordinations are examples where significant sums from unknown sources were found with substantial service increases delivered. 

As we get nearer the start dates more details about the various service levels and patterns will likely come to hand.

Know anything else? Please leave them in the comments below.