Premier John Brumby and Public Transport Minister Martin Pakula announced the new services last week as part of the government’s $38 billion Victorian transport plan.

Mr Pakula said the upgrade of the Laverton rail network would help ease peak hour congestion.

“All track works are now complete and the benefits of the project are starting to be realised,” he said.

“By constructing a third platform and an extra kilometre of track, we’ve removed the bottleneck between the Altona Loop and Laverton Station.”

Mr Brumby said the introduction of new services earlier this year on the Pakenham, Cranbourne and Frankston lines had already had a significant effect for passengers

“The new services, together with the operating changes we made on those lines, have been successful at balancing loads and improving performance,” he said.

But passengers at Laverton station were generally not optimistic about the new services, saying they did not expect to see much of a change.

“They said the same thing when they changed the timetable and it never really worked out for us,” said Maxwell from Point Cook.

“It doesn’t matter how many new services there are when there are so many cancellations.”

The government said the new services would begin from 10 October and run every weekday from the Laverton station into the city.

Two new services will run in the evening leaving from Flinders St, terminating at Laverton every day.

Mr Pakula said the extra services would make life easier for people who commute to work every day from Laverton.

“We are building a better transport system so people can spend more time with family and friends and less time travelling to and from work,” he said.