Travelling by train to Melbourne from her home in regional Victoria, Rhona Rose says she has grown accustomed to long delays, slow and bumpy journeys, and the dreaded rail-replacement bus.
But since the government capped the price of V/Line tickets at $9.20 a day – which has since risen to $10 a day – she has begun to face an entirely new challenge: finding a seat.
During her most recent trip home from Melbourne on the Albury line in late August, she failed in that challenge.
“I went to Southern Cross station early to make sure I’d get a seat and I couldn’t believe how crowded it was. It was crazy,” the 67-year-old said.
“The [conductor] explained that it was supposed to be six carriages that day, but instead there were only three and there was no option of a bus. He basically said: ‘Find a spot on the floor where you can park yourself.’
“For the whole journey people were sitting on the floor. It didn’t feel safe.”
According to Daniel Bowen, a spokesperson from the Public Transport Users Association, Rose’s experience was not unique.
V/Line data shows there were an additional 1.5m trips taken across its network between 1 April and 30 June, compared with the same period in 2022 – an increase of about 45%.
There has also been an increase – from 2% to 4% – in the proportion of travellers standing for some or all of their journey due to overcrowding in that time. Across the V/Line network in August, about 4.6% of passengers were standing for at least some of their trip.
Bowen said the association had received complaints of “rampant overcrowding” on the Albury line since the Victorian government’s election promise to bring regional public transport fares in line with those in Melbourne came into effect at the end of March.
“We’ve heard from people who have had to sit in the aisles, others are unable to book a seat and some resorting to booking on the train from Sydney – which is more expensive and only runs twice a day – as a way of getting around the fact that V/Line just has no capacity left,” Bowen said.
“The other lines are getting very overcrowded as well, particularly on weekends when people want to travel to Melbourne.”
While both Bowen and Rose welcome the cheaper fares, they question why the government did not prepare for the increase in demand by immediately adding more permanent services to the V/Line timetable.
In a statement, a government spokesperson acknowledged the regional fare cap had been “proving extremely popular with Albury line passengers”.
They said V/Line was trialling “reservation-only seating” on weekend services on the line over the “next few months”.
“We’re also running two additional weekend services on the Albury line to give passengers more options to get where they need to go,” the spokesperson said.
According to the V/Line website, under the reserved seating trial, if all seats are booked on a service, passengers will have the option of purchasing an unreserved ticket, which alerts them that they may have to stand for some or all of their journey.
They may also have the option to travel on an overflow bus, if they are available.
Just hours before her trip, Rose had received treatment for her hip pain, which immediately flared up following the three-hour journey on the floor of the train.
“At least if you had a ticket in the past, you knew you’d get a seat on the train. But that’s just not the case any more,” she said. “Who knows if you’ll even fit on to the train.”
This article was amended on 12 September 2023 to clarify that the V/Line daily fare cap has recently risen to $10, from $9.20.
