Melbourne tram passenger loading by route

[Mal Rowe]

The Age has published details of tram passenger loading by route over the period from Jan 2019 to June 2025, based on data from the Victorian Department of Transport.

If you have access to The Age on line, you will find the article at:

• https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/standing-room-only-melbourne-s-busiest-tram-routes-revealed-20260211-p5o1hi.html

I have attached a screen capture copy of the graphic used to illustrate the data.

Red indicates a loading of up to  1.7 million monthly passengers on the route and dark blue represents monthly loading of below 17,500.

If one pauses the mouse pointer over a cell you can see the actual figure, as shown in the screen capture.

I can't locate the original data, but I transcribed the figures for June 2019 (pre COVID) and June 2025 (most recent in the table) and attach the results.

The article says: 

Tram patronage numbers are calculated by counting the number of people who board a tram service and touch on their myki card. 

This is then cross-referenced with Automatic Vehicle Monitoring data to provide a final estimate.

AVM does not measure passenger numbers, just tram location.

Some highlights:

• Overall loading in June 2025 was still only 76% of the pre COVID loading in June 2019. (139M vs 182M on an annualised estimate)
• The busiest route (96) carried 10 times as many passengers as each of the two lightest loading routes (78 and 82)
• The two most resilient routes in terms of loading recovery are 86 (Bundoora) and 5 (Malvern - Burke Rd)

A lot of this change will be due to increased numbers of people working from home.

There is no data yet to show the effect of the opening of the Metro tunnel.

Mal Rowe who thinks some of the figures may be influenced by passengers not 'tapping on'

[TP]

That's a weird way of presenting the information. Why can't PTV simply give us straightforward monthly and annual patronage figures, for all PT, for the modes and for the routes (at least for trains and trams), like the agencies do in NSW and WA? Some governments in Australia treat public transport patronage like a state secret - maybe because they're embarrassed at how low it is? All we're left with is the hard-working BITRE who somehow manage to compile the major annual statistics nationally.

https://www.bitre.gov.au/taxonomy/term/81

Tony P

[Mal Rowe]

On 17/02/2026 15:31, 'TP' via TramsDownUnder wrote:
> That's a weird way of presenting the information. Why can't PTV simply
> give us straightforward monthly and annual patronage figures, for all
> PT, for the modes and for the routes (at least for trains and trams),
> like the agencies do in NSW and WA? Some governments in Australia
> treat public transport patronage like a state secret - maybe because
> they're embarrassed at how low it is? All we're left with is the
> hard-working BITRE who somehow manage to compile the major annual
> statistics nationally.
>
> https://www.bitre.gov.au/taxonomy/term/81
>

The ""weird presentation" is presumably the work of The Age's digital
team, but I agree that mre transparency would be welcome.

Mal Rowe in a State of secrecy

[David McLoughlin]

Mal wrote:

>  The Age has published details of tram passenger loading by route over the period from Jan 2019 to June 2025, based on data from the Victorian Department of Transport. If you have access to The Age on line, you will find the article at:

Here's a link to the text: 

https://tinyurl.com/ms2keuxp

[espee8800]

Tram patronage numbers are calculated by counting the number of people who board a tram service and touch on their myki card.

Well that won't help with accurate figures. Half of Melbourne don't appear to tap on on trams, very noticeable on my tram trips. I always touch on (weekends are free for us oldies) but the looks.............

Virus-free.www.avg.com

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cheers and best wishes,
David in Avenel.au,    
[Before you change anything, learn why it is the way it is.]

[Andrew Highriser]

There are often good statistics at Transport Victoria but it buries them very deeply and you really have to hunt very hard. 

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[Andrew Highriser]

This is a rather pointless presentation because it is based on Myki touch ons.

Take route 78, it is a busy route, stretching along the length of Chapel Street and Church Street. The service carries passengers who board and depart constantly along the route. It carries many people who are public housing tenants at both ends. It carries quite a number of drug addicts, homeless, people with mental health issues, students, recent immigrants...you get the drift. It is rare for people to touch on. I've never seen ticket checkers working on the line, and I expect they are directed to where the most revenue in fines can be raised, rather than focusing on people who simply won't be able to pay fines. The line has to be viewed as a social service, rather than a route where people pay. 

It has high floored trams, without passenger air con, and no platform stops. The street can become very congested with traffic, so the service can be irregular. But I don't believe any of this is because people don't pay. 

Route 16 is another oddity. Its Kew end through to Malvern is very hop on and off and quite busy. From St Kilda to the University it can be very busy, especially on fine days, and if it is a weekend, there can be crush loads. It has in parts similar issues to route 78, with the addition of tourists.  

I really hope these statistics are not used for planning. 

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[TP]

I just looked at the pdf page and that's much more helpful, though the "annual" (month x 12) patronage figures fall far below what I understood to be the case - 205 million in 2019 and 160 million in 2025 (BITRE). So grabbing a random month's figure and multiplying it by 12 doesn't really reflect the truth.

I say this not in an intercity rivalry sense, rather just out of pleasure at seeing Sydney rejoining the big league again, but it's good to see that two Sydney routes are clearly the busiest in Australia - L3 at 17.1 million trips and L2 at 16.1 million trips in 2025, compared with Melbourne's busiest, 96, at 13.3 million trips, though, having regard to my point above about the apparent understating of the Melbourne count, that could be more like 15-16 million per year on 96. 

Patronage of the other Sydney lines for 2025 was 8.5 million for L1 (Inner West) and 3.7 million for Parramatta. Both figures sit comfortably amongst most of the Melbourne routes, the main issue for Sydney being that there are not enough lines yet to be truly equal as a system! In that regard, it's disappointing news that the NSW government has announced that it's staging the extension of L4, with the first stage ending at Wentworth Point on the Parramatta River. This will deny it the connection to the developments in and around Olympic Park, notably a connection with the Metro West Station there and, of course, ending too short to be useful for events there.

Tony P

[Hal Cain]

These figures are especially useless for telling about where heavy or light loading occurs on routes which cross the central city (1, 6, 12, 58, 96, 109) between suburban termini; or for routes which share significant length of trackage (1, 6; 3, 16; 3, 67; 5, 64; 12, 109; 70, 75; not counting shared route between St Kilda Junction and University).

Hal Cain

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[p...@bigpond.com]

I understand the department conducts regular surveys of tram routes were boarding and alighting at each stop are recorded. The surveys were once conducted in house but were outsourced more than 10 years ago. Surveyors travel incognito on predetermined rosters. Someone I know (not an enthusiast) is a data scientist and tells me the very accurate figures and forecasts can be obtained from raw data collected on trams (and on buses and at railway stations for that matter).

The survey results would be important in Melbourne where fare evasion is part of local culture.  

Paul in Melbourne

[TP]

It's quite normal to count patronage by route for public transport. Naturally, quite often different routes come together into a common corridor at some point. There are different counts done for how busy those common corridors and individual stops are.

Tony P