u/AB014A

Source: (https://discover.data.vic.gov.au/dataset/monthly-public-transport-patronage-by-mode)

(Charts 1 & 2)

It looks like the COVID era slump may be coming to an end, though I think we should hold off from declaring it so just yet. We got a big bump in April coinciding with the free fares period.

(Charts 3 & 4)

Comparing with 2018, V/Line is doing the best, probably driven by service upgrades and the generously reworked fares system.

Metropolitan buses and regional buses have been in comparison more stable, maybe due to the passengers using these forms of transport being less able to WFH.

(Chart 5)

Looking at the year-on-year change, it looks like Metro Trains has been tracking up and down in tandem with the trams, probably due to both being dominated by CBD commuter flows.

However, at the start of 2026, train growth positively diverged from tram growth - This may be the result of the Metro Tunnel.

Whilst there was a steady increase of train passengers during the first months of the Metro Tunnel, it really took off during the free travel period, trains benefiting more than any other mode.

This of course might be an artifact of myki-free estimation methods, but it could also be that of the kinds of trips that fares were the final barrier to are more "recreational" style train trips.

This aligns with a bigger impact of free fares in April compared to May; the school holidays were in April.

(All)

2025 was not the best year for PT patronage, possibly the post COVID spike ended and we further recalibrated, or the disruptions during that period were just too much for some passengers.

Whatever the cause, Metro Tunnel or cheaper fares or less disruptions (?), PT growth seems to be back in 2026.

Thanks to u/gertiegoogoo for helping workshop this analysis with me.

At the start of the week, Brisbane woke up to see T1, T2, T3, etc. on their train map, to reflect through running and to prepare for the CRL.

I have been critical of our confusing approach to service labelling and communications (Via where exactly? - Adam Bain), but I have never really considered giving our train lines numbers, I am a proud Melburnian after all – we wouldn’t want to be like Sydney, would we?

But this does seem to be the way of the times, and there are genuine accessibility benefits for first time users, so I decided to make a mockup of what it might look like, based on the existing train map.

This may become particularly useful as the Sandringham line through runs with the Newport lines later this month, bringing two cross city corridors to Melbourne for the first time in a long time.

I also added some buses to the map. I think that they deserve to be on the map, especially the shuttles.

Sometimes people say it would have been fairer if the SRL started in the western suburbs, due to decades of neglect.

Yet there is a reason it started in the east:

Big, expensive heavy rail projects need big, important and dense destinations and as the western suburbs lacks high-density job clusters of the scale found in the east, it is very difficult to make it pencil out.

This sorta means western suburbs rail does not check out without a CBD connection.

I decided to check if this is because Melbourne's East is a "Favoured Quarter" - a term I am borrowing from American discourse, where many cities have a very clear privileged direction, like the westside in Los Angeles.

I found that whilst there is an East-West divide, the inner-outer divide may be more important.

Full article: Do Our Cities Have “Favoured Quarters”? - Adam Bain or Do Our Cities Have “Favoured Quarters”? | LinkedIn

Map notes: I identified clusters based on having over 4,500 jobs per sqkm. LaTrobe Uni and the Airport should probably show up but they are in very large census geographies.

At a glance, Dandenong Station is Melbourne's busiest suburban train-bus interchange: 24 connecting routes, more than anywhere else in the network.

But if we count bus services instead of routes, and it falls to 8th place. Frankston drops even further, from 2nd to 19th.

Link to full article for full write up.

Link to map

Last week, I published this substack post on the case for renumbering Melbourne’s bus routes. The frequency tile chart was particularly popular, so I’ve made versions for weekend and peak services.

What do we see?

Trams (low-numbers) remain frequent on the weekend, but buses don’t – even though (or because) bus users are more likely to be socioeconomically disadvantaged in Melbourne, living in historically neglected and outer suburbs.

To me it is at just a little bit odd that the Pakenham line runs every 10 minutes on both weekdays and weekends all the way to Dandenong, but depending on the route, a bus which connects to it may run half as often on weekends.

One particulary wild finding: around Sunday midday, only FOUR bus routes run every 15 minutes or better (234, 246, 905 and 907) down from 25 routes around weekday midday.

The data is derived from GTFS analysis I did my FreqeuncyFinder web page.

HI RES CHARTS (INCLUDING DARK VERSIONS) HERE: gdrivelink

• Circle Size is proportionate to entries
• Colour ranges from green representing an increase since 2019 to red, which represents a decrease

Melbourne has 369 bus routes, and even as someone who spends a lot of time thinking about buses, I can't remember most of them (unprompted). Sydney's busiest route is the 333 - easy number to remember. Toronto goes further and names routes after the streets they run on, such as 72 – Pape.

So I built a "memorability score" for three-digit numbers and tested it against frequency. Turns out there IS a statistically significant relationship between how memorable a route's number is and how frequent the service is - but it's a weak one (only ~8% of the variation in frequency is explained by memorability).

Therefore, it could be argued that we should renumber our network to improve legibility and more clearly display route hierarchy. As fun as that would be, I lean against a full renumbering - it’d sever a lot of existing brand recognition for ultimately a pretty modest legibility gain. But it's worth considering when new routes are added or existing ones are significantly reformed.

Full write-up with methodology: https://open.substack.com/pub/adambain1/p/melbournes-bus-route-numbers

Since last time I posted here it, I have expanded the map to cover from Pakenham to Melton, and Donnybrook to Mornington.

The map shows weekday midday frequencies across our trains, trams and buses, with colours indicating the range from frequent turn-up-and-go services to hourly routes.

I really want to shout out my friends who have helped give feedback, spell checks, technical help and further advice. I could not have done it without their support.

Check it out hi-res and interactive at ptmapmelb.com

The upcoming state election will be hotly contested in the west, with no seat being a safe seat anymore.

• Mount Atkinson is right on the Melton Railway line but has no station despite explosive population growth - and no official plan to build one.
• Just today, the VAGO has released a report confirming that DTP had made little substantial progress towards the bus plan.

It is important that Labor, Liberal and One Nation remember that local issues like public transport is important, not issues the federal government is responsible for like immigration and income taxes.

Colours range from deep red for a service that comes every 10 minutes or better, to teal-blue for hourly services.

Using the legend, you can toggle different levels of frequency to see - for example - which areas of Melbourne are served by routes which come every 15 minutes.

Also, I made an experimental dark mode - still think I need to hone the colours a bit.

Currently the map includes Whittlesea, Darebin, Banyule, Nilumbik, Manningham, Whitehorse, Maroondah, Yarra Ranges, Monash, Knox, Bayside, Kingston and Greater Dandenong.

If your area is not on it, don't worry I will expand it until all of Melbourne is covered.

Also want to shout out my friends who have helped give feedback, spell checks (I can't really spel) and advice. I could not have done it without the support.

Check it out at ptmapmelb.com

How many Melburnians live within walking distance of our railway stations - I crunched the numbers, and unfortunately, it's less than half, but it differs greatly across council areas.

For more read my latest Substack: Link

And if you can't get into Substack as is an issue I've heard about - I reprinted it on LinkedIn too: Link

How would you "Fill the gaps?"

We can see there are sorta four broad families of routes: Collins, Flinders/La Trobe/Bourke, Elizabeth, and Swanston, with 58 and (especially) 78 hanging out on their own.

The one route that breaks these four categories is the 96, with the overlap with 12 and 109 in South Wharf and 16 at St Kilda.

The most similar routes of course are 5 and 64