Monthly total patronage for metropolitan and regional train, metropolitan and regional bus, tram and regional coach services in Victoria, to allow users to analyse trends in patronage by mode. Patronage is a count of patron boardings onto services, with the exclusion of train transfers that do not involve a change in direction. Patrons includes all persons 5 and over, excluding drivers and station staff.
Data Currency
This information will be updated on a monthly basis but with a 2 month lag in order to provide a comprehensive view of patronage during that time period.
Data Quality
1) Patronage is a count of patron boardings onto services, with the exclusion of train transfers that do not involve a change in direction. Patron includes all persons 5 and over, excluding drivers and station staff.
2) Patronage data for metropolitan modes and for regional bus is derived from myki ticketing data. As ticketing data provides an incomplete picture of the number of people using public transport, DTP also conducts a patronage survey to supplement myki data. The purpose of the patronage survey is to determine the transaction rate, which is the percentage of passengers who ‘touch-on’ when they travel. Ticketing transactions are boosted according to the transaction rate to provide an estimate of total patronage.
3) As of January 2021, metropolitan train patronage uses barrier count data, where available, instead of survey observations to determine the transaction rate.
4) Metropolitan train patronage is derived from a count of station entries, plus a 5% ‘transfer uplift’ to account for trips following a transfer within a station.
5) From January 2026, tram patronage estimation transitioned from a survey-based method to a new method based on automatic passenger counts (APC) for around 50-60% of the tram fleet. The APC method has higher confidence as it uses a large number of observed boarding counts, rather than survey-derived uplift factors which are based on a sample of observations. The existing survey-based method will continue to be used on routes that do not have sufficient coverage of APC technology.
6) Patronage data for V/Line train and V/Line coach is provided by V/Line, and includes coach replacements, conductor or driver estimates and special services.
7) Patronage data for regional bus also includes patronage estimates for services that are not myki enabled. This data is derived from the ‘monthly statistical returns’ completed by each bus operator.
8) The patronage results include estimates for Free Weekend travel from the 30th of November 2025 to the 1st of February 2026, and Free Weekday Travel on the 31st of March 2026. In the absence of myki ticketing data, alternative estimation methods were applied. Due to the different methodologies used from the 30th of November 2025, the patronage should be interpreted with caution.