Greens gamble on $14bn 'Swiss-style' transport authority

THE Greens will unveil a radical election plan to dump the private operators of Victoria's public transport system and its bureaucracies.

THE Greens will unveil a radical election plan to dump the private operators of Victoria's public transport system and its bureaucracies.

They aim to replace it with a single "Swiss-style" authority.

The party claims the $14 billion plan will be bankrolled by ditching two yet-to-be-approved $6bn city road tunnel funding applications to the federal government.

To be launched with the help of Tasmanian Greens leader Nick McKim today, the plan seeks to model Melbourne's transport system on Zurich, Switzerland, where one body is responsible for trams, trains and buses.

The Greens plan would get rid of the Transport Ticketing Authority, VicTrack, MetLink, the Public Transport Ombudsman and the Director of Public Transport. The bodies would be replaced by a single public transport authority, which would hold public board meetings.

The Greens would bring the train and trams operations back under public control "either by terminating the (operator's) contracts for poor performance or at their expiry in November 2016".

It would also reintroduce tram conductors, put staff at all stations across Victoria, extend tram and train lines, reopen others that had been closed and look at how to increase the frequency of trains to every 10minutes.

Zurich is famous for the efficiency of its public transport system and particularly its network of S-Bahn trains, which provide a service every sixminutes and run invariably on time.

The Greens would hire Swiss transport planners to devise an "integrated rail-bus network" connecting regional Victorians to cities.

Victorian Greens MP Greg Barber said the plan would be funded by scrapping two pending applications to Infrastructure Australia - part of the Brumby government's transport plan - to build the proposed Westlink tunnel and Northeast tunnel linking freeways around Melbourne.

He said those funding applications were estimated at $6bn each and Infrastructure Australia would look more favourably on plans to invest in rail rather than roads.

"Our bid would be more likely to be successful," Mr Barber said.

Greens candidate for the inner-city seat of Richmond Kathleen Maltzahn said the privatisation of public transport in Victoria had been a failure and needed to end.

MILANDA ROUT