All Victorians will pay more to travel on the state’s trains, trams and buses with public transport fees set to rise from today.
The Andrews Labor Government will increase the cost of a ticket on metropolitan services by 2.3 per cent on average, adding 20 cents to a daily fare from 1 January 2022.
Regional fares will increase an average of 1.1 per cent.
The increase reverses a fare freeze applied during the pandemic and comes at the wrong time.
Not only are many Victorians still struggling to make ends meet and pay the bills, but patronage across the network remains at record lows.
It’s expected to continue while the Andrews Labor Government fails to lead the CBD’s recovery by getting public sector workers back to the office.
Data from the Department of Transport shows passenger trips have plummeted through lockdowns, with just 600,000 trips per day across the state – down from 1.66 million per day before the pandemic began.
On the regional V/Line network, patronage has dropped from 22.36 million in 2018-19 to just nine million in 2020-21.
Fares were frozen during the COVID pandemic after Labor’s poorly managed response left hundreds of thousands of people out of work and unable to pay the bills or forced to close their business.
Comment attributable to Shadow Minister for Public Transport Steph Ryan
We should be encouraging Victorians to find more reasons to choose public transport, not less.
Higher fares put more pressure on people still struggling to make ends meet, on sick regional Victorians travelling to Melbourne for medical appointments and is less incentive for office workers to get back to the CBD.
Labor can’t manage major projects which has left Daniel Andrews swimming in debt and desperate to plug billions of dollars in cost blowouts, no matter the cost to Victorians.