By Brendan Rees
Opposition transport spokesman David Davis has accused the State Government of “washing their hands” of the “deteriorating” train performances on the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines.
It comes as data from Public Transport Victoria (PTV) revealed 16 per cent of trains failed to arrive on time on the Cranbourne line for the month of June.
“There is a palpable frustration – people just want to rely on services,” Mr Davis said. “The Premier and his minister have got to a get a grip on this performance.”
Mr Davis said the State Government failed to achieve acceptable performance targets on the Cranbourne line every month in the past financial year which was “seriously impacting commuters.”
PTV figures also revealed 15.2 per cent of trains failed to arrive on time on the Pakenham line in June.
A State Government spokesperson said they “won’t take lectures from the Liberals,” who they say stopped work on the Metro Tunnel and “failed to start a single major public transport project anywhere in Victoria last time they were in office.”
“We’ve invested more in improving services on the Cranbourne-Pakenham line than any Government in history – upgrading power and signalling, removing every level crossing between Dandenong and the city and ordering 65 new high capacity trains that will start running exclusively on the Dandenong corridor until the Metro Tunnel opens,” the spokesperson said.
“We’re also duplicating the Cranbourne line to run more trains, and holding our operators to account through tougher contracts that put passengers first.”
Last month, a Metro spokesperson said more services were being run “than ever before” on the Cranbourne line.
Signalling and upgrade works on the Metro Tunnel would also result in “more reliable journeys” on the Cranbourne line, the spokesman said.
However, Mr Davis hit back saying any rail works were not taken into account with PTV’s performance data.
“If there’s a scheduled closure or schedule maintenance all of those are taken out and treated separately,” he said.
He added: “Since the Liberal Nationals left office, performance on the Cranbourne line has plunged 8.5 percentage points and on the Pakenham line by 6.2 percentage points under Daniel Andrews – performance is now shocking.”
The State Government says eight kilometres of single track from Dandenong to Cranbourne will be duplicated as part of a $750 million Cranbourne line upgrade – with construction to start in 2021 and finished by 2023.
