{"id":616149,"date":"2026-04-19T01:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T01:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/616149\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T01:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T01:23:09","slug":"victorias-free-public-transport-extended-for-may-before-half-price-fares-until-end-of-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/616149\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria’s free public transport extended for May before half-price fares until end of year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Public transport will be free in Victoria for another month, and fares will then be slashed by half until the rest of the year, the Victorian government has announced.<\/p>\n

The extension of the free public transport initiative<\/a> has been designed to help curb demand for fuel and provide economic relief amid the knock-on effects of the conflict with Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Transport Infrastructure Minister Gabrielle Williams said the policy was designed to give people “more reason to leave the car at home”.<\/p>\n

“We know that this is a really important measure to take pressure off household budgets, and it’s also about taking pressure off the pump at a time when the situation in the Middle East is so precarious,” she said.<\/p>\n

Iran war live updates:<\/a> For the latest news on the Middle East crisis, read our blog<\/p>\n

She said the cost of the initiative, including free public transport during both April and May, was about $432 million.<\/p>\n

Ms Williams said data showed there had been about a 10 per cent increase in patronage across metro and regional public transport since fares began to be waived at the start of the month.<\/p>\n

“There’s evidence that the road usage in our metro areas has been trending downwards,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We have some data that allows us to see week-on-week the total kilometres travelled and we are seeing a steady decline over roughly the last month.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the company that owns the Geelong refinery that caught fire this week, Viva Energy, has reassured customers that it will not pass on the cost of the accident<\/a> amid concerns over fuel prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Public transport will be free in Victoria for another month, and fares will then be slashed by half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,2610,281428,299014,299017,130870,299015,44,130869,299018,299016],"class_list":["post-616149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cost-of-living","tag-free-public-transport","tag-free-public-transport-april-may","tag-fuel-demand","tag-fuel-prices","tag-half-price-fares","tag-news","tag-petrol-prices","tag-reduced-fares","tag-trains-and-trams-free"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616149","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=616149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}