COMMUTERS have had their say about a number of proposed changes to bus routes in Bendigo.

Public Transport Victoria proposed a major overhaul of Bendigo's bus transport network in December, including new route numbers for all existing services and a new "fast direct" service connecting all Bendigo buses and trains to La Trobe University.

Proposed changes to the existing bus network took into account recommendations outlined in the City of Greater Bendigo's Integrated Transport and Land Use Strategy (ITLUS).

With the support of the City of Greater Bendigo, three PTV community consultation sessions were then held at Bendigo Railway Station, Eaglehawk and Lansell Square in mid December to gain commuter feedback to the changes.  

PTV spokesperson Helen Witton said about 270 residents attended the community information sessions. 

"We received around 350 responses to our online survey, plus feedback through our PTV Hub in Bendigo," she said.

She said PTV was in the processing of looking over the feedback before finalising the changes.

"We are now reviewing the feedback to look at where we can incorporate this valuable feedback into the future bus network," she said.

"Once the new bus network is finalised, PTV will share the details with the community."

City of Greater Bendigo's strategy manager Trevor Budge said council had collected quite a lot of feedback from the sessions which it had conveyed to PTV.

He said there were "strong concerns about some of issues, but reasonably strong support for many of changes proposed".

He said the online survey conducted during the consultation period revealed a more varied response.

"A third thought it was great, a third thought it was not as good as the current network and a third were basically neutral," he said.

Mr Budge said there were three major community concerns which came out of the sessions.

"Some were concerned the proposal meant they would lose a bus stop or it would be shifted and they would have to walk further," he said.

The second was that people were concerned about some of the route changes, with "particularly strong concerns about changes to the Spring Gully route". 

He said the third concern centred on route changes to buses around Eaglehawk,with buses in and around the Eaglehawk city centre less frequent under the changes.

He said opposition to changes to the Spring Gully route was probably the "most vocal concern" at the meetings.

Mr Budge said City was pleased PTV had responded to other "very strongly emphasised points in the consultation period" including connecting services with railway stations, the need for more frequent services on main routes, services which started eariler and ended later, and more weekend services.  

"Council's position is that this is positive in the sense they've heard all the community comments regarding ITLUS and they've built and developed a lot of the system around that," he said.