Melbourne Airport is calling on the Victorian Government to deliver improvements on bus services to meet the needs of both passengers and airport staff living in surrounding areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The airport is one of the largest employment precincts in Victoria outside of the Melbourne CBD, but is served by just four bus routes, one of which does not run on weekends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around 18,000 people work at Melbourne Airport, which is the largest 24-hour airport in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite this, only one public bus route operates after 7:45pm or more than once an hour and there are suburbs where people cannot access job opportunities at the airport because there are no or very few services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Melbourne Airport Chief of Ground Transport, Jai McDermott, said the airport remained committed to a rail line, but also needed a significant improvement to local transport connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSkybus does a great job serving people coming from the city or the Mornington Peninsula, but staff and passengers from the city\u2019s north and west are being let down by a lack of local bus services,\u201d Mr McDermott said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe remain committed to an airport rail line with a fit-for-purpose, future-proof and cost-effective underground station, but while we work towards a link that puts passengers first, immediate action is needed to fix the airport\u2019s woeful local bus services.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr McDermott said many airport staff are shift workers, but the lack of services mean public transport is simply not an option for people who live in surrounding suburbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTaxis are sometimes reluctant to take local passengers to nearby destinations, meaning travellers and staff living in the surrounding areas have few options but to drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cImproved suburban bus connections would help overcome this problem while unlocking more job opportunities for more people in Melbourne\u2019s north and west by providing better transport options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs a significant employment generator for Melbourne\u2019s north and west, Melbourne Airport needs frequent, reliable bus services to connect to places such as Keilor, Sunbury, Taylors Lakes, Sunshine and further afield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe need more PTV buses that start early, finish late and run every 15 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhile our carpark pricing starts from just $12 a day, this should be for people who want to drive, not people who are being forced to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Infrastructure Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Around 18,000 people work at Melbourne Airport, which is the largest 24-hour airport in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":80939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9171,513,47],"tags":[993,10958,8],"class_list":["post-80937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-airport-improvement","category-melbourne-airport","category-rail-news","tag-melbourne","tag-melbourne-airport-rail-link","tag-victoria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80943,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80937\/revisions\/80943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/80939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}