Victorians will get free public transport on weekends for two months, in a move the premier has described as a “thank you” to passengers for putting up with years of travel disruptions due to Metro Tunnel works.
Jacinta Allan on Wednesday announced from the moment the Metro Tunnel opens in early December until 1 February, weekend transport across the state’s trains, trams and buses will be free.
Passengers won’t need to tap on or off with their Myki, but if they do they won’t be charged for their travel. Some regional V/Line services will continue to require a reservation, though this will be at no cost.
“You don’t build the most complex infrastructure project in our city’s history without some disruption along the way,” Allan said.
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“This is a way of saying thank you. It’s a way of encouraging Victorians to come and try the new Metro Tunnel.”
The tunnel, which connects the Sunbury line in Melbourne’s west to the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines in the south-east via five new underground city stations, will open in early December once it receives the necessary approval from the national rail safety regulator.
But for the first two months – the period in which weekend public transport will be free – the tunnel will be operating at a reduced capacity and only outside peak times. The government described the move as a “summer start” to allow further testing of the new infrastructure.
During this period, trains will run through the tunnel every 20 minutes from Clayton South’s Westall station, on the Cranbourne-Pakenham line, and West Footscray, on the Sunbury line, between 10am and 3pm on weekdays.
On weekends, they will run every 20 minutes from 10am to 7pm, and extend to East Pakenham every 40 minutes and Sunbury every 60 minutes. These 240 services are in addition to existing trains on both lines, which will continue to operate as normal through the City Loop.
Then from 1 February, the Cranbourne-Pakenham and Sunbury lines move out of the City Loop and begin running exclusively through the Metro Tunnel. The Frankston line will then move into the loop.
Dubbed the “big switch”, this stage will include an overhaul of the state’s public transport timetable, including the addition of 1,000 extra weekly services on the Cranbourne-Pakenham and Sunbury lines, with trains to run every 10 minutes from 6am to 10pm between Watergardens and Dandenong.
During peak periods, this will increase to every three to four minutes, which is a “turn up and go” service.
Allan defended the two-phase launch on Wednesday.
“This isn’t a stand-alone line. This is taking a big new piece of complex infrastructure – new tunnel, new trains, new technology – that doesn’t just have to talk to one another, it has to talk to the rest of the network,” she said.
The two months of free weekend transport will cost about $15m in forgone revenue but Allan said this will be absorbed by the transport department’s budget.
The government previously announced in its May budget that Victorian children under 18 would be able to travel for free on all forms of public transport from 1 January next year.
