Track Record - Public Transport Victoria

14 Track Record Quarterly services bulletin
Patronage
Metropolitan trains, trams and buses
Patronage on Melbourne’s public transport network increased by 3.4 per cent during 2011 – 2012,
with an extra 19 million trips made by passengers.
Some 537 million public transport trips were made in Melbourne in the past year, including 222 million
trips on trains, nearly 192 million on trams and 123 million on buses.
Tram had its second biggest year since the 1950s and is now carrying almost 192 million passenger
trips a year, with patronage growing 4.5 per cent in the past year and by 23.7 per cent over the past
five years.
The most significant growth continued to be on the bus network, with use of buses growing by 56 per
cent over the past six years, including a massive 16 per cent jump in patronage in the past year.
After a long period of sustained growth, train patronage fell slightly for the year ending June 2012,
although most recent figures indicate that patronage is growing again.
While the overall yearly figure for train was slightly down, trips in peak times continued to grow by
around 3 per cent in the morning and afternoon peaks. In the most recent quarter (April – June), train
had its second strongest quarter on record with 58.9 million trips made by passengers.
The slight decline in train patronage can be attributed to a number of factors including lower retail
sales in the city, the broader impact of a downturn in the global economy, decline in petrol prices
and the highly publicised period of poor performance in April 2011 when Metro’s punctuality fell
to just 76 per cent – the lowest level in decades.
Figure 11 Metropolitan train, tram and bus patronage
250
200
Patronage (millions)
150
100
50
0
1998
– 99
1999
– 00
2000
– 01
2001
– 02
2002
– 03
2003
– 04
2004
– 05
2005
– 06
2006
– 07
2007
– 08
2008
– 09
2009
– 10
2010
– 11
2011
– 12
Financial Year
Metropolitan train Tram Metropolitan bus