Public transport services in greater Melbourne have not kept up with the city’s apartment boom, prompting calls for a bigger emphasis on transport during planning.
The number of apartments grew by 88 per cent from 2004 to 2022 but there was only a five per cent jump in transport services within walking distance, RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research found.
Along the route 86 tram line there was a 102 per cent increase in apartments, but just a 0.3 per cent lift in transport services.
It was a similar story on the Upfield train line where the number of apartments jumped by 134 per cent but there was just a seven per cent increase in services.
However, researchers did find exceptions such as along the Frankston line where there was a 58 per cent jump in train services but the number of apartments grew by 16 per cent.
Lead researcher Steve Pemberton said the reasons for the discrepancy between areas was not clear as researchers found no pattern to explain it.
He said overall, public transport services had not matched the growth of apartment housing.
“More advantaged areas with apartment housing do not necessarily receive a greater number of public transport services per person than less advantaged areas with apartment housing,” Mr Pemberton said.
“It’s probably fair to say that somewhere like Upfield is particularly hard to improve services because of the level crossings on high-volume roads, though it’s hard to improve train services everywhere.”
He stressed upgrades to vehicles, that allowed them to take on more passengers and avoid overcrowding, was not the same as increasing services, as people still had long wait times between services.
“They’re just crammed into a bigger vehicle with more people,” Mr Pemberton said.
“If the objective is to encourage people to live in higher density housing, then an uplift of public transport services in areas where density is increasing should be part of what helps make people want to live there.”
There needs to be a greater focus on public transport services during the development process, according to RMIT senior research fellow and project lead Chris De Gruyter.
“More needs to be done to better integrate transport and housing policies to improve the sustainability, productivity and liveability of our city,” he said.