Jeroen Weimar and Raymond O’Flaherty share their thoughts on the challenges and opportunities facing Victoria’s public transport network.
Australia’s public transport sector needs to take advantage of the “heaven-sent opportunity” presented by the fuel crisis to change the way the public thinks about mobility, says Jeroen Weimar, Secretary of the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning (DTP).
Speaking at the Public Transport Association of Australia and New Zealand (PTAANZ) Public Transport Policy Symposium 2026 in Melbourne, Weimar said: “With people spending $200, $250 to fill up the tanks of their cars, we can’t waste this crisis.
“Our colleagues at Monash University and every other research institution would give their right arm for an opportunity like this to see – what will this do to our system? How will travel patterns change?”
After Victoria offered free public transport in the month of April 2026, the state saw a 25 to 35 per cent uptick in demand across trains, trams and buses.
Weekend patronage on V/Line services more than doubled, and Weimar said many people took advantage of the free fares and good autumn weather to explore regional towns.
“From April 13 to 19, 2026, we carried 1.64 million more people than we did in the same week last year,” he said. “That means for every four people we carried in 2025, we’re now carrying five – across an increasingly diverse and complex set of journeys.
“We’re now back to pre-COVID levels in terms of demand on our daily transport system.”
Following free fares in April and May, public transport in Victoria will be half price for the rest of the year.
Weimar said the challenge for the industry is to “milk” this period of increased passenger numbers as much as possible, ensuring that the public gains a better understanding of public transport and how it integrates into their lives.
“We have to build loyalty from these bold experiments,” he said.
“That will come back to our fundamentals – reliability, frequency, customer service, good support and staff, and giving people a sense of how the systems work for them. But it’s also about network improvement.”
These improvements include new rolling stock – with the launch of the X’Trapolis 2.0 fleet happening at the start of May, as well as new zero-emission buses, and Melbourne’s Next Generation G Class trams now in testing.
They also include improving the network, with services reflecting real travel patterns.
“It’s one thing to set the network up, and it’s another to add services that reflect where people actually want to go,” he said.
“We have a diverse and growing society, with far more complex journeys, and that is our biggest planning challenge.
“We know we need to get more agile, faster, but it’s a huge, exciting opportunity for us all.”
A safer network
Raymond O’Flaherty, Chief Executive Officer of Metro Trains Melbourne (MTM), also spoke at the Public Transport Policy Symposium about building passenger loyalty.
He said a major part of building loyalty is keeping passengers safe.
In 2024, following the COVID-19 pandemic, MTM saw an increase in anti-social behaviour across the network.
“I think that was experienced by all the Australian operators in this room,” he said.
“We had a rise in violent behaviour towards frontline staff, more assaults on passengers, and more trespass incidents. In one quarter, there were 1484 such incidents.”
Fortunately, these incidents are now on the decline, thanks in part to MTM’s partnership with Victoria Police.
MTM has 1463 Protective Service Officers deployed at stations across its network, as well as 50 of its own dedicated security officers, and 455 authorised officers.
At some of MTM’s “more difficult” network locations, it has rolled out a “Community Connectors” program.
“We have trained case officers on the ground every day, engaging with people in our community who would otherwise create issues on the transport network.
“Having those case officers on platforms speaking to them is diffusing a lot of potential situations, and helping the people who need help the most.”
MTM also has more than 14,000 cameras across its network, which send a live feed back to the control room where there is a full-time team of four people, including a police officer, keeping watch for incidents.
“We recently had a passenger on one of our services who had a knife,” O’Flaherty said. “He wasn’t threatening any of the other passengers, but he was showing the knife to people.
“Having a permanent police officer in our control room, we were able to mobilise security to go to that service and arrest that person, virtually within minutes.”
While O’Flaherty is proud of everything MTM has achieved, he acknowledged there are more challenges to overcome.
“I firmly believe the foundations have been built, but there is a lot more work to be done to modernise ageing assets,” he said.
“I can take you to some of our signal boxes or control rooms where signal panels are 60, 70 years old.
“But for me, passenger loyalty and trust is about delivering services on time, providing safety and reliability and clear communication when things don’t go according to plan.”
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