effects a statewide free travel scheme will have on regional commuters<\/a>.<\/p>\nIn Mr Drew’s case, he was unaware that free travel only applied to return trips made the same day.<\/p>\n
His experience left him confused about the way the scheme works and left him branding it a “PR exercise”.<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, the Victorian Labor government, what they tell you and what happens is totally different quite often, very deceptive comments they put out to get people in,” Mr Drew said.<\/p>\n
“Let’s put it this way: when you live in rural Victoria, fairness doesn’t come into it, does it?”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/bd55615f321d78bdb0d140a74c19e3a2\")
<\/p>\n
A free travel sign displayed at the Warragul train station for during November. (ABC Gippsland: Danielle Kutchel)<\/p>\n
Almost charged full fare<\/p>\n
Stratford man Sean Falzon, who was travelling to Melbourne about a week ago, said he called V\/Line after reading a sign at the station instructing passengers to book their free ticket over the phone.<\/p>\n
Instead, he was told the fare would be $11.<\/p>\n
“I said, ‘It’s supposed to be free’ \u2026 and they had no idea what I was talking about,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Falzon was told to go to a staffed station to collect the ticket, however, he told the staff member the sign directed him to call to book one.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/a987dd45f9949b4fe1077d954159118b\")
<\/p>\n
A free Gippsland travel poster displayed at the unstaffed Stratford Station. (ABC News: Jack Colantuono)<\/p>\n
He was then put through to a V\/Line supervisor, who was surprised Mr Falzon’s ticket was not booked instantly.<\/p>\n
“He said they could have just booked it quickly and easily,” Mr Falzon said, indicating earlier advice from the first employee was wrong.<\/p>\n
“I said to him [the supervisor] if I knew it was going to be this long, I would have just jumped on the train and rolled the dice and see if I got a fine or not.”<\/p>\n
Mr Falzon later learned from another local that he could have collected a free ticket from the conductor on board, something he said was not mentioned on the call.<\/p>\n
“There’s a sign at the station saying if I’m travelling between Nar Nar Goon and Traralgon, I can get the ticket from a conductor, but between Rosedale and Bairnsdale [where Mr Falzon is travelling from] I need to get it over the phone. I’m not sure if the advice was correct,” Mr Falzon said.<\/p>\n
“I would have given up if I didn’t absolutely need to go to Melbourne the next day.”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/40c22122dd92d9882c85fcbe45c9de83\")
<\/p>\n
The Stratford train station is one of the few stations across Gippsland that is unmanned. (ABC News: Jack Colantuono)<\/p>\n
He said while the free travel was a good idea, the process could cause “headaches”, particularly for elderly passengers.<\/p>\n
Clear instructions, but still confusion<\/p>\n
Warragul commuter and musician Malcolm McCaffery, who has been affected by Gippsland Line disruptions in the past, had a different problem when he tried to use the free travel scheme.<\/p>\n
When he went to board his train to Melbourne, he discovered it was cancelled and later vented his frustrations on social media.<\/p>\n
“Love the free travel vouchers to compensate for months of cancelled trains, just to have the train service cancelled,” Mr McCaffery shared on Facebook, noting the irony of the situation.<\/p>\n
The post quickly gained attention, prompting other passengers to share their own issues, such as not realising the free vouchers or tickets could be issued by on-train conductors.<\/p>\n
“As long as you read, it’s really clear what you have to do; but not all stations have staff, so that’s where I think people get confused,” Mr McCaffery told the ABC.<\/p>\n
The Gippsland rail upgrades began in 2018, resulting in extended periods where buses replaced trains.<\/p>\n
The completion of the upgrade this year means an extra 80 services can run each week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/b0904655d91d8019c3ea3d92e233e970\")
<\/p>\n
Malcolm McCaffery shared a quirky post on Facebook on the irony of free travel. (ABC Gippsland: Danielle Kutchel)<\/p>\n
Simplify it, passenger union says<\/p>\n
Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) spokesperson Daniel Bowen said the free-travel offer was welcome after years of disruptions on the Gippsland Line, but described the arrangements as “really confusing”.<\/p>\n
“To have two different types of a free ticket or voucher for different parts of the line \u2026 if your local station is unstaffed, then that’s a real problem,” Mr Bowen said.<\/p>\n
He said the scheme should be simplified.<\/p>\n
“You shouldn’t have to read a wall of text to decipher the instructions,” Mr Bowen said.<\/p>\n
“Even for people who can access information online, it can still be confusing.<\/p>\n
“The fact we’ve had V\/Line staff themselves confused around it just underscores what a confusing arrangement it is.”<\/p>\n
A V\/Line spokesperson said the free-travel initiative was being promoted through station posters and online information.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said signs at unstaffed stations also reminded passengers they could collect a voucher from the conductor after boarding.<\/p>\n
They said that of the more than 744 Gippsland line services running in November, only eight were cancelled due to emergency incidents and staff availability.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to invest in our public transport network to deliver more services, boost reliability and to make travel cheaper for passengers,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
“Since we introduced the regional fare cap, Victorians have taken\u00a062 million trips\u00a0across the state.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Norm Drew, a farmer from Heyfield in Victoria’s east, recently travelled to Melbourne for a meeting, eager to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16474,57480,177213,177212,177211,177210,43,44,38238,48995,41,39,42,40,55730,171658],"class_list":["post-312963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-department-of-transport","tag-gippsland","tag-gippsland-free-travel","tag-gippsland-free-travel-voucher","tag-gippsland-line","tag-gippsland-v-line","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-public-transport","tag-state-government","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trains","tag-v-line"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}