Public Transport Victoria (PTV) has published performance data for September, which saw improvements across rail and tram services.
PTV CEO Jeroen Weimar said September saw performance improvements across the network during a busy month, with 2,000 additional services delivered to transport thousands of passengers to the AFL and NRL finals and to the Royal Melbourne Show.
“We put on hundreds of extra train and tram services, transporting almost half a million passengers from across metropolitan and regional Victoria, to the footy finals and the Royal Melbourne Show,” Weimar said.
Metro Trains Melbourne delivered 92.4 per cent of services on time in September, clearing the monthly target. The operator’s MR4 contract – which came into effect on last November – requires the operator to meet a new punctuality rate of 92 per cent of trains running within 4 mins and 59 secs of their scheduled arrival time, and a new delivery target for timetable services of 98.5 per cent.
The Glen Waverly Line was the best performer, with 97 per cent of trains arriving on time. The worst was the Cranbourne line, where 83.8 per cent of services ran to their scheduled times. The newly extended Mernda Line did well, with 94.9 per cent.
“The first full month of the newly extended Mernda line and the new timetable changes, also demonstrates our capacity to introduce more stations, carry more passengers, run more services and still deliver punctuality improvements,” Weimar said.
V/Line continued to experience improvements, which has seen punctuality rise by almost nine per cent since May to 88.2 per cent.
The Geelong (91.5 per cent) and Ballarat (89.6 per cent) lines were among the best performers, with Ballarat recording its highest punctuality result since December 2016. Ten of the 11 regional lines returned reliability results higher than, or equal to, the 12-month average.
“We’ve been putting a lot of work into improving regional services for our passengers, and that effort is starting to pay off,” said Weimar.
Yarra Trams exceeded its punctuality and reliability targets with 86.3 per cent of trams arriving on time and 99.2 per cent reliability.
“This is the ninth successive month the reliability target has been exceeded on our tram network which reflects the added investment going into maintaining and upgrading our fleet,” Weimar said.