On 31 March 2026, Victoria made every train, tram and bus free. No myki, no tap on, no fare. What did people do?
As an international student in Melbourne, I watched fares go free in April 2026 and wondered: did people actually change how they travel, or did the same people just stop paying? And once fares came back at half price, did the new riders stay?
The timeline
| 30 Nov 2025 – 1 Feb 2026 | Free travel on weekends |
| 31 Mar – 31 May 2026 | Free travel every day on all trains, trams and buses |
| From 1 Jun 2026 | Half-price fares until the end of 2026 |
The government’s reason was rising fuel prices: free travel was meant to save households money and take cars off the road (Office of the Premier, 2026a, 2026b).
A note on the data. Monthly trip counts come from the Department of Transport and Planning (2026). When travel was free, people didn’t tap on, so there was no myki data. The department estimated those months a different way and warns they should be read with caution. Metro train is the most reliable mode, because it’s counted with station gate (barrier) data, not myki taps. Tram counting also changed in January 2026.
The questions this story asks
COVID-19 emptied public transport. Six years later, free fares produced the busiest month since before the pandemic.
What you’re seeing. Every public transport trip in Victoria each month, stacked by mode. Grey shading marks the COVID-19 restrictions; orange marks free travel. Drag the slider under the chart to zoom in, or use the Last 18 months button. Hover for exact numbers, and click a mode in the legend to hide it.
The collapse and the climb. Trips fell by 89% between April 2019 and April 2020. By 2025 they had climbed back to 81% of the 2019 total.
Then fares went free. April 2026 had 51.7 million trips, +25% on April 2025, and the busiest month overall since October 2019. Metro trains had their busiest month since October 2019.
Chart summary: stacked area chart of monthly trips by mode from January 2018 to June 2026. Trips fall sharply in 2020 and 2021, recover gradually, and peak again in April and May 2026 when fares were free.
April is usually a quiet month, with Easter and school holidays. In 2026 it was the busiest month of the year.
What you’re seeing. Each line is one year, running January to June (2026) or January to December (earlier years). 2026 is the thick orange line; 2019, the last year before COVID-19, is dotted. The shaded months were free in 2026. Use the menu to switch between all modes and each mode on its own.
The usual pattern: March high, April dip. In 2019, 2024 and 2025, trips fell from March to April, with Easter and school holidays.
2026 went the other way. Trips rose from March to April, the first month fares were free. Switch to Metro train: April 2026 (22.3 million) sits above every other April, including 2019.
Now switch to Tram. The orange line barely rises above 2025, and stays well under 2019.
Chart summary: line chart of monthly trips by month of year for 2019 and 2023 to 2026, selectable by mode. In 2026, trips rise in April and May, when most years dip.
Compared with the same month a year earlier, the free months stand out across every mode. Trains, metro and regional, jumped the most.
What you’re seeing. Each square compares a mode’s trips with the same month a year earlier. Teal = more trips, brown = fewer. The outlined columns are the two free months. Use the buttons to switch the comparison to 2019, before COVID-19.
The free months light up. In April 2026, metro trains were +44% and V/Line trains +40% on a year earlier. Trams (+10%) and metro buses (+12%) rose much less.
The free weekends barely show. December 2025 and January 2026 look mixed, and some modes even fell. Free weekends alone didn’t change much.
Switch to the 2019 view. Trams stay brown even in the free months: the mode never recovered from COVID-19. V/Line trains are teal almost everywhere; regional rail now carries more people than before the pandemic.
Chart summary: heatmap of the change in trips by mode and month from July 2024 to June 2026. April and May 2026 show large increases for every mode except regional bus, strongest for metro and V/Line trains.
Measured against the same month before the pandemic, free fares pushed metro trains past their 2019 level. Trams stayed stuck below it.
What you’re seeing. Each line shows a mode’s trips as a share of the same month in 2019. The dashed line at 100% is the 2019 level. The chart opens on metro train vs tram; press All modes to add the rest, or click names in the legend.
Before free fares, trams were keeping pace. From 2022 to 2025, trams recovered about as well as trains, and sometimes better.
Then trains broke away. In 2025, metro trains averaged 76% of their 2019 level. In the first free month they shot to 120% of April 2019.
Trams never did. Trams averaged 78% of 2019 in 2025. Even with free fares, they reached only 85% of April 2019. Free fares can’t fix what changed after the pandemic, such as fewer people travelling into the city centre every day. (Note that the tram counting method also changed in January 2026.)
Regional rail is a different story. Add V/Line train from the legend: it has been above 2019 since early 2024, and free fares pushed it to 171% of April 2019.
Chart summary: line chart from 2020 to 2026 of each mode’s trips as a share of the same month in 2019. Train and tram track closely until 2026; in April 2026 metro train jumps past 100% while tram stays below 2019.
When fares came back at half price in June, trips dropped from their free-fare peak, but most modes stayed well above a year earlier.
What you’re seeing. For each mode, three markers compare trips in 2026 with the same months in 2025: grey circle = full fares (February–March), orange diamond = free (April–May), blue square = half price (June). The grey bar shows the range. Modes are sorted by the size of the free-fare jump. Click a fare period in the legend to hide or show it.
Before free fares, changes were small. In February and March 2026, every mode was within about 10% of 2025.
Free fares moved everything right. Metro trains went from +9% to +33%.
Half price kept much of the gain. In June, metro trains were still +16% on June 2025, and metro buses +14%. The one exception is V/Line coach, which fell below 2025 in June.
Only one half-price month (June 2026) is in the data so far, so it’s too early to say whether the new riders will stay for good.
Chart summary: dot plot of the change in trips against 2025 for each mode in three fare periods. Free months show the largest increases for every mode; half-price June stays above 2025 for all modes except V/Line coach.
What the data says, and what it doesn’t.
| Measure | Before (full fares) | Free (Apr 2026) | Half price (Jun 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| All trips vs a year earlier | +3% (Mar) | +25% | +12% |
| Metro train vs a year earlier | +10% (Mar) | +44% | +16% |
| Tram vs a year earlier | -4% (Mar) | +10% | +6% |
| Metro train vs 2019 | 89% (Mar) | 120% | 88% |
What the data says
What it doesn’t say
My takeaway. Free fares worked best where the service was already strong: trains. If the goal is to get people back on public transport for good, price helps, but it isn’t the whole answer. Trams show that some of what changed after the pandemic, like where and when people travel, a free fare can’t undo.
Department of Transport and Planning. (2026). Monthly public transport patronage by mode [Data set]. DataVic. https://discover.data.vic.gov.au/dataset/monthly-public-transport-patronage-by-mode
Office of the Premier. (2026a, March 31). Public transport now free every day until the end of April [Media release]. Victoria State Government. https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/public-transport-now-free-every-day-until-end-april
Office of the Premier. (2026b). Extra month of free PT – then half-price fares for all [Media release]. Victoria State Government. https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/extra-month-free-pt-then-half-price-fares-all
Sievert, C. (2020). Interactive web-based data visualization with R, plotly, and shiny. Chapman and Hall/CRC. https://plotly-r.com
I acknowledge the use of Claude (Anthropic, 2026) to help structure the narrative, and correct any error in the code and written narrative.
Anthropic. (2026). Claude (Opus 5.5) [Large language model].
Data used under a CC BY 4.0 licence from the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning.