Sunshine Rail Corridor Study

The DoT (nee DoI) has been undertaking studies to determine the physical, economic and financial viability of increasing the capacity of the Sunshine line in Melbourne's west. This study involved both the major suburban rail services and regional services from Ballarat (Ballarat, Bacchus Marsh and Ararat) and Bendigo (Sunbury, Kyneton, Bendigo, Swan Hill and Euchuca).

VLC's role in the study, which was conducted in conjunction with BAH, was to estimate the constrained and unconstrained demand for rail services in the corridor under a variety of operational, land-use and policy scenarios.

In order to do this it was necessary to extend the footprint of the pre-existing Zenith model to include the major regional centres involved and re-calibrate the model to ensure that the characteristics embedded in the model faithfully replicated travel demands associated with these centres.