The Bendigo railway line’s failure to consistently operate at full passenger capacity during peak commuting times pushes it further down the pecking order for extra services and carriages, a regional transport advocate says. 

V/Line commuter figures for March show that just 12.5 per cent (one out of eight) Melbourne-bound trains before 9am were full, on average, compared with 53.8 per cent in Ballarat (seven out of 13) and 75 per cent in Geelong. 

Conversely, in the afternoon peak periods in the same month, 33 per cent of Bendigo-bound trains were full, while the Ballarat (63.6 per cent) and Geelong (69.2 per cent) lines had better patronage. 

Similarly in April and February, no Melbourne trains were full in the morning peak, while 33 per cent were at peak capacity heading back to Bendigo. 

Public Transport Users Association regional spokesman Paul Westcott said while it was clear Bendigo had less commuters than other regional centres closer to Melbourne due to its geographical location, the line “was not a pressure point as far as capacity”. 

“(Bendigo is) not going to be at the top of the tree when it comes to getting more services and rolling stock (carriages) unless they try to get more frequent services,” he said. 

Compounding the issue, Mr Westcott claimed, was the fact that a number of Bendigo trains were not all six or seven-car carriages long.

He said there was scope for increasing train length in Bendigo, but suggested V/Line would be guided by capacity figures such as these when making decisions on which lines to add carriages to.

The state government’s plan to increase the frequency of services – 20 minute peak and 40 minute off peak in Bendigo – would be guided by the current infrastructure, which he believed, was not up to it.

Bendigo was reduced to a single track north of Kyneton in the mid 2000s as part of the regional fast rail project, he said, and while some lower-speed crossing loops were retained, no upgrades have been made, making the track prone to “unreliability”.

“It means you can’t have two trains on a single track,” he said. 

V/Line spokesperson Catalina Filip said: “We’re adding 18 more services to the Bendigo line in August, increasing frequency on the weekend and in the evenings, to give passengers more choice about when to travel.”

“V/Line regularly monitors patronage and as VLocity carriages roll off the production line, we’ll allocate them to the busiest services on the network, including the Bendigo line.”

The Bendigo line has seen an increase of 4.62 per cent in patronage in the first three months of this calendar year, compared with the same period in 2015.