The days of getting a seat on a Melbourne train will soon be replaced by the kind of shoulder-to-shoulder commute people experience daily in mega-cities such as Tokyo.
Designs for a planned fleet of 65 new high-capacity trains that will enter service from mid-2019 reveal a radical change is in store for Melbourne train travellers.
The trains will be built to carry between 1200 and 2000 passengers each, depending on their configuration, and they will be designed to maximise standing room, with seats provided for just 30 to 40 per cent of passengers in a fully loaded train.
The bumper loads will be accommodated by enabling "standing passengers to safely travel at a density of up to six passengers per square metre", technical documents seen by Fairfax Media say.
According to studies, this level of crowding is comparable to that experienced in the Tokyo metro.
By way of comparison, the city's current fleet of trains are designed to comfortably fit 900 people and seat about two-thirds of them.
A 2011 study of Australian commuters' tolerance for crowding, by the Co-operative Research Centre for Rail Innovation, found Australian train travellers would easily tolerate a density of up to four people per square metre before a sense of overcrowding kicked in.
According to the technical documents, the high-capacity trains will be built with seating for 40 per cent of passengers but will "enable a future reduction of seating in the range down to 30 per cent of the original gross train capacity".
Every standing passenger would have a grab rail or hanging strap to hold onto.
Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan said that without larger trains and more services, passengers would be left stranded on platforms in peak hour.
"We're building a 21st-century metro system for Melbourne, where trains run more often and carry more passengers," Ms Allan said.
The trains, which will be built by CRRC Changchun in China and by Downer at the historical Newport rail workshop in Melbourne's west, will also include several high-tech features previously unseen in this city.
The new trains will include passenger Wi-Fi, eight CCTV cameras per carriage (four inside and four outside) and an ability to estimate within 10 per cent how many people are on board and relay this information in real time to central control. They will also be secured against electronic hacking.
The 65 trains are to built as part of a $2.3 billion public-private partnership with the Victorian government.
The trains will initially run on the busy Cranbourne-Pakenham corridor and in the City Loop, then through the Metro rail tunnel once it opens in 2026 and on the Sunbury line.
They will be built with seven carriages and could extend to 10 carriages with "gross passenger capacity of at least 1970" people in future years.
