Wyndham Harbour’s weekday commuter ferry service is dead in the water – but hundreds are flocking to the weekend sailings.
Port Phillip Ferries operations director Murray Rance said a lack of numbers was behind last week’s decision to scrap the seven-day Wyndham Harbour to Docklands service, and instead run two return Friday services, and a return service on Saturdays and Sundays.
The business also started a daily Portarlington to Docklands service off the back of three “highly successful” passenger trials.
“You just can’t run a ferry service with seven people [on board],” Mr Rance said. “During the week, the commuter support has been very poor.
“In fairness to Wyndham Harbour, they have been quite supportive of us on the weekends, so consequently we’re still running on weekends.”
The 400-seat Wyndham Explorer catamaran started its Wyndham Harbour to Docklands trial on May 16, and has since undergone several timetabling and price changes in response to public feedback. Despite this, commuter numbers have dropped off during the week.
Mr Rance said between 200 and 400 people use the service on Saturdays and Sundays.
He said Port Phillip Ferries would meet with the state government in the next week to update them on the trial’s progress. The trial is expected to run until the end of August.
Mr Rance said if the weekend services continue to be popular, “then there’s no reason why we wouldn’t continue to support it”.
The changes come a week after Star Weekly columnist Kevin Hiller questioned why the weekday service wasn’t more attractive to commuters.
The column prompted a raft of responses online, with Peter writing: “Ferry services are successful when there is a nearby large population of commuters or when the ferry route is a logical step in the route from home-work-home. The Wyndham ferry meets neither of these.”
