Regional students will have more options to get to or from school with train services to better align with school bell times under a timetable change from the start of Term 3.
The Victorian Government has listened to community feedback on January's major timetable change and made some adjustments.
One train service will change its departure time to accommodate school students while another will have a stop added.
From July 11, the mid-afternoon train from Southern Cross to Ararat will depart Ballarat Station 40 minutes later at 4.04pm giving students from Ararat enough time to catch the service after school.
The train will arrive in Ararat at 5.02pm, 22 minutes earlier than a bus that was put in place as a temporary solution, giving students more opportunities to get to extra curricula activities.
As a result of the changes, other Ararat services throughout the afternoon will be altered to maintain an even spread of services.
The weekday timetables for six V/Line coach routes will be re-coordinated to maintain connectivity with train services on the Ararat and Ballarat lines.
On the Bendigo line, Sunbury school students will again be able to catch a train that arrives in time for them to make the first bell and workers will have more options, with a service stopping at Sunbury at 7.48am from Eaglehawk.
To add the stop at Sunbury, the timetable for the 6.22am from Eaglehawk will change for all passengers boarding at stations from Eaglehawk to Clarkefield, with the service running two minutes earlier than in the current timetable, before realigning to the same pathway through the metropolitan area.
Changes are also being made to a number of V/Line coach routes departing from Ballarat, Warrnambool and Mildura.
Passengers can check their new timetables at vline.com.au from 11 June with the changes come into effect from 11 July, the day before Term 3 begins for Victorian school children.
The changes come after the Victorian Government added 450 extra services a week, including 125 on the Ballarat line in the January timetable change.
As stated by Minister for Public Transport Ben Carroll
"We know how important these train services are for getting students to and from school, that's why we made these important changes."
"Delivering a timetable change on the scale of January's was a big task - we said we'd listen to the community as we implemented the timetable and that's exactly what we've done."
