V/Line fails August targets

Rail operator has missed targets for four consecutive months

MORE than 200 trains on the Geelong line ran more than six minutes late in August, V/Line data reveals.

While the regional rail operator almost hit its punctuality target of 92 per cent on the Geelong line last month, 241 services of the 2792 did not reach their destinations on time. Across August 91.4 per cent of trains on the Geelong line were on time or no more than six minutes late.

That means the operator has now missed its target in four consecutive months between May and August.

The figure is an improvement from August last year, where 89.5 per cent of trains were on time.

V/Line chairman Jeroen Weimar said: “It’s encouraging to see this improvement following the ongoing infrastructure upgrades that continue to be carried out across the regional train network.”

A V/Line spokesman said patronage on the Geelong line has increased by more than 45 per cent during the past four years.

“In that period, 92 new weekly services have been added that Geelong passengers can access,” the spokesman said.

“More people travelled on V/Line services than ever before in the 2018-19 financial year with more than 22.36 million passenger trips taken.”

To cope with demand, V/ Line has upgraded two daily weekday Geelong line services. VLocity carriages are now used for the 7:36am Geelong to Southern Cross and 6:18pm Southern Cross to Geelong that has added about 80 seats to each service.

Across the network V/Line delivered 87.8 per cent of services on time in August which was above the level achieved in August 2018 (86.9 per cent) but still below V/Line’s target of 92 per cent.

Punctuality on the Warrnambool line improved from 88.1 in July to 91.9 per cent in August.