Moving Melton
Transport Prospectus 2022
Bus Network
The City of Melton bus network is failing the community.
Whole suburbs or large parts of suburbs have no to bus services.
Peak frequency of most routes is about 30 minutes and services are indirect, with travel time often close to twice that of travelling by car.
Only five of the 47 bus routes in the City of Melton meet the minimum service level criteria.
Lack of access to effective public transport from where people live, from aging, disability, injury, language and other barriers (Transport Disadvantage) increases financial hardship, impairs health and wellbeing outcomes, and reduces people's equity of access to services, community, jobs, education and opportunity.
Older, disabled and other vulnerable people, as well as women and diverse communities are more likely to need local transport solutions to access local services. Their local transport needs are poorly served by existing services.
The poor service is reflected in the fact that only 1% of trips made in the City of Melton are by bus. All of the services within Melton township (453, 455, 457, 458 and 459) have declined in patronage while the population of Melton has increased significantly between 2014 and 2019 (pre-COVID).
We are calling for a bus network review to identify better ways to service our community.
A review of the City of Wyndham’s bus network in 2015 unwound complex and confusing routes and integrated new routes with train stations.
The reformed network introduced a hierarchy of reconfigured bus routes that boosted service levels, major trunk routes were straightened, poorly performing routes restructured and merged, and frequencies improved.
By 2019, weekday patronage was up 25 per cent and 40 per cent on weekends.
Route 460 in Caroline Springs is an example of an effective route. It is direct, connects major destinations and has under 20 minute frequency in peak time. Patronage on this route has significantly increased from 125,000 passengers a year in 2014/15 to 322,000 in 2018/19.
Solution
A review of the bus network in the City of Melton.
Reconfigure the bus network to update some existing routes to create increased frequency and directness
Three new level of services for our community, an extra $3m, $5m and $10m a year, to be rolled out over time
Upgrade local services integrating last-mile commuter transit with special needs assisted-transport covering different user needs across extended transport hours
Use the map below
Note: this map only works from a desktop browser.
View existing, reconfigured at no cost, and additional investment bus network scenarios for the City of Melton.
Drop ‘Jane’ to a spot on the map to test the different scenarios and how it affects the community
You can click on existing bus routes and new bus routes on the right-hand side to see frequency and travel times.
You can click on job data on the left-hand side to see how many jobs can be accessed within one hour of travel time under each scenario.
For example, ‘Jane’ in Aintree can access 530 jobs within one-hour travel time today or 10,500 jobs within one hour in the $10 million network.
• Existing routes
Select proposed cost:
• 10 million per year