Travelling across Victoria will become considerably cheaper with the introduction of a daily fare cap for regional train and coach travel, but there are concerns cheap tickets could lead to overcrowded services and stranded commuters.
From Friday, travel on all V/Line services will be capped at $9.20 per day for an adult and $4.60 for concession and child fares, as the Victorian government follows through with an election commitment. On weekends and public holidays, fares will be capped at $6.70 for adults and $3.35 for a concession.
The fare cap – which is in line with the existing metro daily fare – will overhaul regional pricing, which was based on trip distance and frequently made car travel a cheaper option, especially for families and those travelling in groups. The cap doesn’t apply to services that V/Line operates outside Victoria, except for some border communities.
Before Friday, a V/Line trip from Geelong to Melbourne cost $13.80 one way for an adult, while going from Ballarat to Melbourne cost $22.80 and from Bendigo to Melbourne $34.40. The trip from Mildura to Melbourne, which includes a section on V/Line coach between Mildura and Swan Hill, cost $56.80.
The new savings have prompted concerns from transport advocates that demand for travel on the cheaper services could be so significant that carriages could be standing room only and stop accepting passengers as they near Melbourne.
While public transport usage in Victoria is still at 80% of pre-Covid levels, some V/Line services have already had crowding beyond capacity in recent weeks ahead of the cap coming into effect.
Standing room only on this Melbourne-bound train leaving Geelong - only eight more stations of passengers to board, and the next train is 40 minutes behind. pic.twitter.com/qmghgJGLaZ
— Marcus Wong (@aussiewongm) March 25, 2023
“Crowding is definitely a problem already,” said Daniel Bowen, a spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association. “I think everyone is going to be watching very closely once the cap comes in.
“With such a big price cut, it seems likely that a lot more people will want to use V/Line and that there will be crowding on some services and even people unable to board.
“I suspect that in the coming months the government will be under pressure to fund additional services.”
Bowen identified services on the Ballarat, Geelong and Seymour lines as where excessive demand could become a problem, because they service suburban Melbourne stops on their way into the city.
The government already plans to introduce an additional 200 weekend V/Line services, but only from 2024.
It already runs extra carriages on services during peak times, but Bowen questioned if there was any additional capacity for this should demand surge once the cap comes into effect.
“Even if they’ve got spare carriages available that aren’t needing maintenance work, they’re going to need qualified drivers to run those services,” he said.
Guardian Australia asked the public transport minister, Ben Carroll, if there was surge capacity to operate additional services if initial increased demand was higher than anticipated.
A government spokesperson replied: “We will continue to monitor and manage network demand following the introduction of the fare cap.”
They said a number of daytime, weekend and long-distance services had spare capacity that would help absorb an increase in patronage.
