V/Line's annual report for 2014/15 has been released.  Total patronage is up to over 15 million customer trips.  Subsidy per passenger is $20.17.  And it has annual expenses of $621.9 million:

https://corporate.vline.com.au/getattachment/cc310c6b-b9a2-4d13-bfdb-83de0c6f60ba/Annual-Report-2014-15

There are some excellent achievements highlighted in the document. However in response to the patronage increases the following from the document is relevant:

In June, V/Line started servicing the growing suburbs of Tarneit and Wyndham Vale using the newly completed $3.65 billion Regional Rail Link - the biggest change to the V/Line network in 10 years which saw a 30 per cent increase in V/Line’s weekday services.

At the same time we have been receiving new rolling stock at a rate of about one carriage per month, with a further 21 new carriages committed in this year’s budget. To support this unprecedented growth we will continue to assess and finesse our performance, and identify and implement improvements to deliver the services our customers deserve and expect.

I would like to know what the growth figures were without the Tarneit and RRL uplifts as these customers have transferred from Metro services to Vline services.

The numbers are important.   I can see a decrease in the passenger trips across the coach network.  Not sure why or where.

Rail passenger trips increased by around 600,000

Tickets sold decreased by close to 30%  (Is this due to Myki taking over?)

Number of serviced stations increased by 4.

I shall continue reading.

Some numbers:

Bendigo patronge down by 20% over 5 years.  That is not good. People are either moving away or are leaving the rail network due to service issues.

As for the Geelong Line:

These numbers are up. It would be nice to know how much of the passenger increases for geelong are due to the RRL.  The number is misleading.

There were small increases in patronage on all of the non-Geelong short-haul services.

I grabbed a copy of the VR annual report from 1960 for comparison.  Typically around 5 million passenger trips per year on the country network back then.

Some numbers:

Bendigo patronge down by 20% over 5 years.  That is not good. People are either moving away or are leaving the rail network due to service issues.

Bendigo line traffic is lower than 2011-12 because of Sunbury electrification which started in Nov 2012.

Crunching the numbers - Metro says 688000 passengers used Sunbury and Diggers Rest stations in 2013-2014.  So 3.45 million - 0.688 million = 2.762 million.  So there has been a loss of around 250000 passengers from the rail network on that line since 2011-2012.

Vline also state:

V/Line operated a total of 71,654 train services and 65,104 coach services in 2014-15. Long distance services accounted for 12,923 of these and commuter line trains were 58,731. This represented a combined increase of 5.8 per cent on the previous year.

An Analysis

2013-2014	2014-2015	Change	Trips	Passengers per service
Passengers	Trips
Rail	13,002,311	13638486	5%	71,654	190
Coach	1472438	1410067	-4%	65,104	22

The above shows an average of 22 passengers per coach trip and 190 per train journey.  If also shows a 4% decrease in patronage across the bus/coach network from the previous period.

I've always wondered why some government run country bus services are managed by Vline, while others are not.

The daily service to Marysville, Alexandra and Eildon and the several times a week service from Bright to Omeo are two examples of rural bus services run on contracts to the state government with no apparent involvement by Vline and I'm sure there are dozens of others.

It would be interesting if they disclosed the passenger subsidy per kilometre travelled for both train and coach.  These would be interesting figures to see where the benefit of the subsidy is actually going and to what mode it goes.

Also, is Albury/Shepparton considered part of the Seymour line for the line growth charts?

Re Bendigo line patronage, Diggers Rest was set up as a park-and-ride station that would directly compete with Vline services. Drive to Diggers Rest, pay a Zone 2 fare and catch a peak service with a frequency of 12 minutes that travels through the City Loop. Why change from Vline at Footscray to stand on Sunbury train, when the alternative is to park at Diggers Rest and get a seat ?  I'm surprised patronage has held up as much as it has.

I recall an interview on ABC with the MTM CEO, who said Sunbury patronage was up 4-fold since electrification.  Some of it is not doubt through park-and-riders using Diggers Rest who would otherwise have used Vline.

Some numbers:

Bendigo patronge down by 20% over 5 years.  That is not good. People are either moving away or are leaving the rail network due to service issues.

Err...no...Sunbury electrification..

In reality patronage is possibly..probably still increasing.

Mike.

V/Line's annual report for 2014/15 has been released.  Total patronage is up to over 15 million customer trips.  Subsidy per passenger is $20.17.  And it has annual expenses of $621.9 million:

https://corporate.vline.com.au/getattachment/cc310c6b-b9a2-4d13-bfdb-83de0c6f60ba/Annual-Report-2014-15

Waiting for the bean counters and naysayers responses....or have they given up and left the Forum

I've always wondered why some government run country bus services are managed by Vline, while others are not.

The daily service to Marysville, Alexandra and Eildon and the several times a week service from Bright to Omeo are two examples of rural bus services run on contracts to the state government with no apparent involvement by Vline and I'm sure there are dozens of others.

They're directly contracted by the government through PTV instead of being organised by V/line. Some of the routes are basically just mail and parcel runs being done by an 12-seat van but there's an incredibly large network of these buses running all across the state. Have a look on the PTV site under 'Regional Buses' - I bet there's heaps of bus services to small towns across Victoria that you had no idea existed, it makes an interesting read.

V/Line's annual report for 2014/15 has been released.  Total patronage is up to over 15 million customer trips.  Subsidy per passenger is $20.17.  And it has annual expenses of $621.9 million:

https://corporate.vline.com.au/getattachment/cc310c6b-b9a2-4d13-bfdb-83de0c6f60ba/Annual-Report-2014-15

$20.17 is still far too high a subsidy.

Michael

I've always wondered why some government run country bus services are managed by Vline, while others are not.

The daily service to Marysville, Alexandra and Eildon and the several times a week service from Bright to Omeo are two examples of rural bus services run on contracts to the state government with no apparent involvement by Vline and I'm sure there are dozens of others.

They're directly contracted by the government through PTV instead of being organised by V/line. Some of the routes are basically just mail and parcel runs being done by an 12-seat van but there's an incredibly large network of these buses running all across the state. Have a look on the PTV site under 'Regional Buses' - I bet there's heaps of bus services to small towns across Victoria that you had no idea existed, it makes an interesting read.

Is VLine a subcontractor for Australia Post in these situations???  Or is mail and parcel some sort of euphemism?

What is the subsidiary for NSW train link ?

Really interesting question @freightgate.

2015 reports are not yet available, so here are the 2014 numbers.  Disclaimer, this assumes that the entities are identical and therefore comparable, i.e. they make the same rollingstock payments, network use payments etc.  I don't know enough and don't have the time to check this!

For NSW Trains, 2014 subsidy is $15.60/trip ($542m subsidy over 34.7m trips - NB intercity trips are 32.9m, regional are 1.8m but there are no breakdowns of the subsidy for intercity vs regional to see how much intercity and regional are individually subsidised.
http://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/b2b/publications/annual_reports/nsw-trains-annual-report-2013-14.pdf

Also, for Sydney Trains, 2014 subsidy is $4.22/trip ($1.186bn subsidy over 281.2m trips).
http://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/b2b/publications/annual_reports/sydney-trains-annual-report-2013-14.pdf

Really interesting question @freightgate.

2015 reports are not yet available, so here are the 2014 numbers.  Disclaimer, this assumes that the entities are identical and therefore comparable, i.e. they make the same rollingstock payments, network use payments etc.  I don't know enough and don't have the time to check this!

For NSW Trains, 2014 subsidy is $15.60/trip ($542m subsidy over 34.7m trips - NB intercity trips are 32.9m, regional are 1.8m but there are no breakdowns of the subsidy for intercity vs regional to see how much intercity and regional are individually subsidised.
http://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/b2b/publications/annual_reports/nsw-trains-annual-report-2013-14.pdf

Also, for Sydney Trains, 2014 subsidy is $4.22/trip ($1.186bn subsidy over 281.2m trips).
http://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/b2b/publications/annual_reports/sydney-trains-annual-report-2013-14.pdf

Keeping in mind that V/Line has the most extensive and frequent Rail/bus network of any state in Australia. Consequently to operate the network the subsidy would necessarily be greater.

Mike.

Is VLine a subcontractor for Australia Post in these situations???  Or is mail and parcel some sort of euphemism?

No, the situation is that a private operator, usually locals who might also run school buses, can be contracted by PTV to provide a service to passengers in addition to a regular freight or possibly Australia Post service that the contractor might already run; for example, the Henty Highway coach from Mildura to Horsham is a small bus that also provides a freight/parcels service along the way with 3 return services a week.

They're usually very low frequency services, sometimes only once or twice a week - if you are lucky they could be more frequent than that. I would be interested to see some of the statistics on the very low frequency routes; Denis Napthine was trying to get rid of quite a few a while ago but I think he gave up on the majority of his cuts. I think it's a good thing that if you needed to go to (say) Warracknabeal that there is actually a public bus service that goes there if you for whatever reason can't drive... but obviously some of the routes are very marginal propositions.

Is VLine a subcontractor for Australia Post in these situations???  Or is mail and parcel some sort of euphemism?

No, the situation is that a private operator, usually locals who might also run school buses, can be contracted by PTV to provide a service to passengers in addition to a regular freight or possibly Australia Post service that the contractor might already run; for example, the Henty Highway coach from Mildura to Horsham is a small bus that also provides a freight/parcels service along the way with 3 return services a week.

They're usually very low frequency services, sometimes only once or twice a week - if you are lucky they could be more frequent than that. I would be interested to see some of the statistics on the very low frequency routes; Denis Napthine was trying to get rid of quite a few a while ago but I think he gave up on the majority of his cuts. I think it's a good thing that if you needed to go to (say) Warracknabeal that there is actually a public bus service that goes there if you for whatever reason can't drive... but obviously some of the routes are very marginal propositions.

Ok, interesting.  Its a great idea using the same vehicle for multiple purposes.  Though you do need to question the subsidy and if that is indeed appropriate to be paying.

There are also a few school bus routes that will take paying passengers, but are not widely advertised. I still remember having to get from Mt Beauty to Falls Creek outside the ski season, (which is the only time there is proper public transport between the two towns). I managed to blag my way on to the afternoon bus returning kids from high school at Mt Beauty to their homes at Falls Creek.

Decades afterwards, I still suffer flashbacks of the chaos of noisy and unleashed teenagers running around the swaying bus while it negotiated tight bends on the mountain road.

Decades afterwards, I still suffer flashbacks of the chaos of noisy and unleashed teenagers running around the swaying bus while it negotiated tight bends on the mountain road.

And you're a braver man than I am, Gunga Din.