The Hon. Gabrielle Williams, Minister for Public and Active Transport (Vic), Media Release, 9 April 2024
Regional Victorians have more money in their pockets thanks to the Allan Labor Government’s fairer fares on public transport, saving more than $50 million in its first year.
Minister for Public and Active Transport Gabrielle Williams was in Geelong today, to mark one year of making regional public transport more affordable by capping the daily regional fare at the same price as the daily metropolitan fare.
Passengers have been showing their enthusiasm for cheaper regional travel, with more than 22 million trips taken since the fare cap commenced.
The fare cap is helping ease cost of living pressures, with a return ticket to Bendigo (previously costing up to $68.80), or Geelong (previously costing as much as $27.60) now capped at the daily metro fare of $10.60.
Regional network patronage for the year ending 31 December 2023 was 97 per cent of the 2019 calendar year patronage – while V/Line also recorded its busiest month on record last month, with almost 2.16 million trips taken.
V/Line has also added hundreds of special services across the network, put on extra carriages, utilised standby coaches and trialled new reservations procedures to meet increased demand.
Almost 200 extra weekend V/Line services will be added thanks to a $219 million Labor Government investment in the Victorian Budget 23/24.
V/Line runs more than 2,200 scheduled train services and 1,500 coach services every week, with more than 800 new services per week added onto the V/Line network since 2015.
More information on regional public transport services is available at: vline.com.au/home.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Public and Active Transport Gabrielle Williams
“We’ve made fares fairer across regional Victoria – easing the cost of living for Victorians, saving them millions of dollars since it was introduced a year ago.”
“We’re delighted fairer fares have been so popular and we’ll continue transforming the regional rail network – upgrading every line in the state, adding better trains and additional services.”
