Inner Neighbourhood Boundary Extensions

From Sunday the 18th December 1988, there were three extensions to the boundaries of the inner neighbourhood. Two of these involved bus services in the suburbs of Laverton and Keilor Park. At Laverton, buses to the north of the station and the growing industrial area beyond were now conveniently accessable with an inner neighbourhood ticket. Residents of the small but somewhat annexed suburb of Keilor Park were delighted to have their bus services covered by an extension of the inner fare boundary. These changes may well have resulted from prolonged agitation by bus patrons in these areas (?). Here we show part of the circular to ticket selling staff detailing these boundary shifts.



Publicity material reflecting these changes was not re-issued until the neighbourhoods were replaced by zones in August the following year. From then they could be discerned in the new public transport map and fares & Travel brochure under the guise of the new Zone 1.

The third alteration was to one of the rail fare boundaries and involved the extension of the Inner neighbourhood 700 metres from Surrey Hills to Mont Albert. This was the first time that a rail fare boundary has been altered during the currency of any fare structure. This resulted in the longest fare overlap on the rail system being Canterbury to Mont Albert. Briefly, when the original Zone system was replaced by the neighbourhoods in 1983, rail patrons at Mont Albert headed for the cheaper fares available from Surrey Hills, or the faster more frequent peak hour trains from Box Hill. By 1986, shopkeepers at Mont Albert were complaining of their loss of custom and while the boundary retraction did not help, the vast new Box Hill Central shopping centre was likely the major cause.
With the extension of the Inner neighbourhood to Mont Albert came the return of Rail+Two tickets to that station.


The first full fare Rail+Two to be issued after 18/12/1988.

Note that the date was applied with a hand stamp on which the year had not been changed over, so it was altered with biro! Note also how long it took for the first of these tickets to be sold after being supplied. The spasmodic unmanning of Mont Albert station also made patrons go elsewhere.