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Public transport advocates and the rail union have questioned whether the Metro Tunnel will deliver a true “turn-up-and-go” service for Melbourne, as the first test trains make their way through the $12.6 billion infrastructure project.
With the tunnel due to open in just two years, experts say the Andrews government is yet to convince them that high-frequency trains will run in the outer suburbs off peak-hour and on weekends.
Premier Daniel Andrews and Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan inspecting one of the new trains set to run through the Metro Tunnel.Credit: Joe Armao
The Metro Tunnel, set to open in late 2025, consists of two nine-kilometre train tunnels under the CBD and five new underground stations. It will connect the Sunbury line, which runs through Melbourne’s fast-growing western suburbs, with the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines, along the city’s busy southeastern corridor.
The first test train successfully entered the tunnel’s South Yarra entrance in the early hours of Tuesday morning, stopping at Anzac Station near the Shrine of Remembrance.
Premier Daniel Andrews said additional trials would be conducted over the coming months as his government prepares to deliver a turn-up-and-go system that would provide Melburnians with more trains, more often.
A turn-up-and-go public transport model refers to commuters being able to disregard timetables altogether and enter a station whenever is convenient for them, confident that the next service is only a few minutes away.
But the Rail, Tram and Bus Union – which is currently locked in negotiations with Metro over its next enterprise bargaining agreement – says it does not yet know how those additional services will be adequately staffed.
“We’re concerned that through current negotiations, Metro has failed to provide assurances around minimum staffing, training and skills requirements to underpin the effective provision of these flagship services,” union secretary Vik Sharma said.
“We’re calling on Metro to address service level and staffing arrangements in the agreement that will deliver these services to Victorian commuters.”
Public Transport Users Association spokesman Daniel Bowen said commuters in the middle and outer suburbs needed high-frequency services before Melbourne’s public transport system could accurately be described as turn-up-and-go.
“That’s what happens overseas,” he said. “The Sunbury line is only every 20, 40 minutes outside peak hour.”
Monash University Professor Graham Currie said train frequency would have to improve to at least every 10 minutes in peak times and no greater than 15 minutes in off-peak along the line between Sunbury and Dandenong to make the most of the $12.6 billion Metro Tunnel.
“There are three things that drive new transport ridership,” he said. “Number one is frequency of service, the second thing is frequency of service and the third thing is frequency of service.”
The original 2016 Metro Tunnel business case proposed initially running trains every 20 minutes from Sunbury, Pakenham and Cranbourne in the off-peak, with services running every 10 minutes at stations between West Footscray and Dandenong via the city.
Trains would depart the five new inner-city underground stations every 4 minutes in peak periods if the government delivers that model. By contrast, London’s new Elizabeth Line runs every 2.5 minutes during peak hour and every 4 minutes off-peak.
A Department of Transport spokesperson said that timetables for both peak and off-peak services were being developed and would be confirmed “prior to the tunnel opening a year ahead of schedule in 2025”.
Design changes, tunnelling problems and rising material and labour costs blew out the project’s original $11 billion budget by $2.7 billion in late 2020, with Victoria and builders agreeing to pay an extra $1.37 billion each.
There have been further cost overruns but Rail Projects Victoria has kept the total budget to its current $12.6 billion by limiting some network upgrades originally part of the project, including by cutting the rollout of new high-capacity signalling back by one-third.
Andrews defended the cost of the project on Tuesday, arguing the money was a necessary investment given Melbourne’s growing population.
“You can have the best team of engineers, you can have the best team of experts, but they don’t have X-ray vision and they don’t have a crystal ball,” he said.
“Sometimes projects become more complex than you thought they would. But … the cost of this project is absolutely well and truly outweighed by the generational, multi-decade benefits that will come from having pushed through and gotten this done.”
Opposition Leader John Pesutto accused the government of mishandling the project.
“Daniel Andrews’ legacy is one of record debt, record taxes [and] having sent Victoria broke,” he said.
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