For some reason, my first post of the new year is traditionally a bit of a rant. It seems that 2026 will be no different.

This one is on my usual hobby horse of passenger information from (Public) Transport Victoria or (P)TV. Specifically on disruptions caused by the $26 billion North East Link.

While travelling through the area recently I saw a sign stating “Eastern Freeway closure, 7 January 2026 to 12 January 2026”.

With no other information on the sign I headed to the North East Link webpage that is supposed to list all disruptions for the project. Unfortunately this was where I encountered the first of many issues.

For a start, the list of disruptions is at the bottom of the page. They are also listed in descending date order, meaning that the most recent disruptions are at the bottom of the long list.

Most importantly this “Eastern Freeway closure” disruption that I had seen on the physical sign was nowhere on this list. There was one listed for February but not for January.

I then went to the separate “Disruptions map” page that has a better interactive map of what is happening. This does list “Eastern Freeway closure” on these dates as an item. Great!

Clicking on it brings you to this little information panel.

And this map of the detour for motor vehicle traffic.

This is better than most public transport information; it even includes a map. But what if you are one of the tens of thousands of people who use the Eastern Freeway every day that are not in a car or truck?

For people walking and cycling this disruption information doesn’t help. There are three current long-term detours and closures along this section of the freeway which will still be in place, but it is unclear if the closure of the Eastern Freeway between Doncaster and Middleborough Roads will further impact access.

Then we come to disruptions for public transport. Buses in the area have already been through a lot of delays and disruptions, with many more to come, not least the over three-year closure of Doncaster Park and Ride. Many bus routes use the freeway here and the surrounding roads. So how will these operate?

The North East Link website is completely silent. There is nothing on the original disruptions page or on the map. Even filtering by bus disruptions yields no results, other than two bus stop closures at Wetherby Road and Blackburn Road that give us a small hint as to what to expect.

Given it relates to public transport, let’s head over to the new Transport Victoria website and check.

Over on the main ‘Planned disruptions (public transport)‘ page we find… absolutely nothing. For some reason it only concerns itself with rail-related topics, with every single disruption listed relating to metropolitan or regional trails.

The new ‘AI chatbot’ isn’t much help at all as it can’t understand even basic questions about public transport. After one unhelpful answer and one attempt to understand my question, it gives up and tries to direct me to a human.

Even following its initial advice and visiting the VicTraffic website doesn’t help. The upcoming closure of the freeway is not listed on the map, even when adjusting filters. It only appears to show disruptions and events in the present or recent past.

Let’s dig a bit deeper on this little adventure. My next port of call is the individual bus route timetables as these will (usually) list disruptions. I’ll pick the 907 as it operates on the freeway up to and then along Doncaster Road. Given that the Freeway will be closed from here, I would expect some kind of impact to this route. Maybe even some measures to make sure that buses don’t get stuck in the much larger amounts of traffic that will be diverted along this road.

Clicking on the 907 and then the perpetual orange exclamation mark in the top right hand corner initially shows nothing. But after selecting “anytime” to show disruptions, we finally see this message box that talks of “temporary bus stop closures”.

Doesn’t sound too serious, does it? Given the bombardment of useless and incorrect information that public transport passengers endure, honestly I would not have paid much attention to this notice had I not known about the freeway closure. “Temporary bus stop closure” sounds low impact.

But click on the ‘read more’ button and it finally brings you to this page.

This is the first sentence: “Bus route services 295,303, 318 and 906 will be diverted and they will be stop closures to support traffic optimisations on routes 280,282,902,903 and 907 due to works on Eastern Freeway from 10pm Wednesday 7 to last service Sunday 11 January 2026, due to works.”

Frankly this is poorly written as it contains many errors and is difficult to understand. The article also doesn’t explain what “works” or “traffic optimisations” means, an important detail that I have mentioned before.

All that the page does is provide a long list of bus stops in text. There is no map or graphical information. This makes this very difficult to read.

The article also doesn’t include anything on where buses will be diverted, or what, if any, measures will be taken to ensure that services can run reliably. There is no information on what delays should be expected, and not even a link to the North East Link website for people seeking more information.

Unfortunately this is just one of many examples of the poor state of our transport information. As the Metro Tunnel has shown, we are capable of doing things well, and there are many good examples for us to use. This just doesn’t seem to have translated into improving the rest of the network. These are not new issues that only seem to continue.

ADDENDUM 06/01/2026: I saw this Facebook post from Transport Victoria show up just now.

This only reinforces my points made earlier. In particular, note that the bus disruption information is incomplete.