DAILY CITY FERRY PUSH
FLOATED: Geelong to Melbourne commuter express
A TRIAL of daily ferries between Geelong long and Melbourne will be discussed today y at a meeting involving the company behind d Geelong’s footy ferries.
Port Phillip Ferries — which began services from Geelong earlier this year for the Cats’ home games in Melbourne — and the Committee for Geelong will meet to discuss how a trial servicing up to 400 people a day on a 100-minute trip could work.
Committee for Geelong CEO Rebecca Casson said the service was needed due to skyrocketing patronage on the Geelong rail line and increasing traffic on the Princes Freeway. “The Committee for Geelong believes the time is now right to explore alternatives to the standard transport options,” she said.
A TRIAL of 100-minute daily ferries between Geelong and Melbourne will be discussed today at a meeting involving the company behind Geelong’s footy ferries.
Port Phillip Ferries — which began services from Geelong earlier this year for the Geelong Football Club’s home games in Melbourne — and the Committee for Geelong will meet to discuss how a trial servicing up to 400 people a day could work.
It comes after four footy fer- ries run since March have averaged about 100 passengers each.
Port Phillip Ferries CEO Murray Rance said about 130 commuters needed to use a daily ferry between the Geelong waterfront and Victoria Harbour in Melbourne for the service to be viable.
“The research we have done with the business community gives us confidence,” Mr Rance said. “We are certainly very interested in looking at it as a viable commuter service.”
The company currently runs twice-daily 75-minute services between Portarlington and Docklands which operates seven days a week.
“We found with the Portarlington service that people find it is a nice way to travel to work,” Mr Rance said.
His meeting with the Committee for Geelong comes after the group began lobbying for the daily Geelong to Melbourne service.
Committee for Geelong CEO Rebecca Casson said the service was needed due to skyrocketing patronage on the Geelong rail line and increasing Princes Freeway traffic.
“A Geelong express ferry departing from central Geelong by 7am and arriving in Melbourne soon after 8.30am would be well used and could potentially take more than 400 passengers off the road and rail system,” Ms Casson said.
“Every day more residents are relocating to Victoria’s second city, with many of them commuting daily to work from Geelong to Melbourne.
“Our city region is the fastest growing in the state and more than 17,000 Geelong commuters are travelling to Melbourne every day — more than 12,000 by road and over 5000 choosing the train.
“In order to address the more immediate issues, the Committee for Geelong believes the time is now right to explore alternatives to the standard transport options.”
Ms Casson said the Portar- lington ferry appealed to commuters because it had meeting tables, charging stations and fold-down tables on board.
The Westgate Tunnel, and the planned duplication of the Geelong train line between Waurn Ponds and South Geelong, is expected to deliver relief to commuters in coming years. The State Government has also allocated $50 million in the 2018/19 Budget to investigate fast rail between Geelong and Melbourne. Trips on the Geelong, Waurn Ponds and Warrnambool lines have almost tripled in the past decade to 7.61 million in 2016-17.