Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan announced on October 7, 2025, that the Metro Tunnel project, completed after nearly a decade of construction starting in 2017, will begin passenger services in early December following safety regulator approval.
The 9-kilometre underground line links Sunbury to Cranbourne and Pakenham, bypassing the City Loop to connect universities and hospitals while reducing congestion.
Initial operations include trains every 20 minutes during limited hours, with full high-frequency services every three to four minutes starting February 1, 2026, and free weekend public transport across Victoria until January 31, 2026, as a thank-you for construction disruptions.
The Metro Tunnel will transform how we travel around Melbourne when it opens in early December – just like how the City Loop did over forty years ago.
If this is true, and there will be TWENTY MINUTE gaps between trains on Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel when it first opens, it might go down as the worst PR move in history.