Vehicles to help our trains

NEW vehicles and road rules to restore train services faster and improve response times to incidents have been launched by the State Government, as V/Line continues to fail targets on the Geelong line.

The new vehicles will enable technicians to get to more incidents, and in less time, to repair faults, clear tracks and get services moving again, Acting Premier James Merlino said.

V/Line recorded 92.1 per cent reliability and 82.2 per cent punctuality for the Geelong line in January 2018, not meeting its targets of 96 and 92 per cent respectively.

It was the 38th time in 41 months V/Line failed the punctuality target.

Mr Merlino said the State Government had made legislative changes to the road safety rules to exempt Rail Incident Response Vehicles from a number of road rules if they are responding to a railway incident.

Incidents include infrastructure faults, trespassers on the network and trees on the tracks.

It is understood Geelong will be among the first regions to receive the new vehicles.

It is also understood the vehicles are expected mid-year once the drivers are trained and certified.

Mr Merlino said getting experts on site faster would benefit both train passengers and motorists, particularly in incidents such as faulty boom gates, which can cause major traffic delays.

He said more than 100 incident response staff would undergo specialist training to enable them to safely operate more than 90 vehicles across the state under the new road rule exemptions.

“We know how frustrating it can be for Victorians to be stuck on trains due to incidents across the networks,” Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan said.

“These teams will be able to respond quickly to get passengers home sooner.”