The Victorian opposition has pledged to halve V/Line train fares if it is elected at the November election.
It comes after the Coalition announced on the weekend it would cap local public transport fares at $2 a day.
Shadow Public Transport Minister Danny O'Brien said the policy would halve V/Line yearly fare revenue from about $100 million, based on pre-COVID figures, to around $50 million.
This equates to a total cost over four years of $200 million.
The majority of V/Line's income is not derived from yearly fare revenue.
In the 2020-21 financial year, V/Line reported a total income of $1 billion with reported profits of $20.5 million in the 2020-21 financial year.
Only $32.6 million or four per cent of its revenue came from ticket sales, with the remaining 96 per cent of V/Line's income stemming from government subsidies and projects.
It represented a 30 per cent increase in profits from 2019-20 despite its passenger numbers dwindling by half in the pandemic period.
Just 8.3 million passengers travelled on V/Line train services in 2020-21 compared to 16.9 million in 2019-20, with the transport operator attributing the drop-off to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Residents in regional hubs made up most of the passenger base, with 3.95 million travelling from Geelong, 1.96 million from Ballarat and 1 million from Bendigo.
Opposition spruiks 'significant' savings for regional commuters
Mr O'Brien said the opposition's policy would deliver thousands of dollars in savings for regular commuters between Melbourne and regional Victoria.
"It's a significant saving for many people across regional Victoria. It'll get more people back onto our public transport services and, of course, boost tourism in our regional areas," he said.
"Half price is a lot of money — if you're doing that over a year, it's significant."
Under the election promise, the daily savings for regional Victorians commuting to Melbourne would be about $14 from Geelong, $23 from Ballarat and $34 from Bendigo during peak hours.
Mr O'Brien said the policy would help ease cost-of-living pressures, despite Victorians working from home more regularly.
"Working from home has become a more regular thing, but we do need to have the opportunity for people to catch the train for those couple of days that they do have to come into the city," he said.
The opposition also promised on Tuesday free replacement buses for when V/Line trains were down.
Politicians encouraged to consider long-term planning
RMIT Centre for Urban Research director Jago Dodson said there was merit in considering reductions to V/Line fares.
"The questions of disparity in terms of service quality we see between inner/middle suburbs and outer suburbs … don't really quite apply to the V/Line," Professor Dodson said.
While he said fare reduction could be beneficial to those who make sporadic trips to Melbourne, Professor Dodson encouraged policy-makers to consider the long-term effects it would have on the state's urban sprawl.
"We do need to be thoughtful as to whether we would just be subsidising people to live in the countryside and commute back to the CBD of Melbourne on a daily basis and encouraging that sort of regional suburbanisation."
