Melbourne Airport to Melbourne CBD & Southern Cross

There is no train, and there never has been

Start here, because it saves a lot of searching. Tullamarine has no rail connection to Melbourne. The Melbourne Airport Rail project has been announced, costed, delayed and re-announced for decades, and the line still does not exist. Every way into the city runs on tyres: a coach, a public bus, or a car.

Visitors from Sydney or Brisbane in particular tend to assume otherwise and go looking for a platform. There isn't one.

SkyBus, and which terminal you need

The Melbourne City Express is the default and it runs frequently, day and night, to Southern Cross Station. Off-peak with an empty freeway it takes about eighteen minutes; twenty-five to thirty is typical; between six and ten in the morning or three and seven in the afternoon, allow forty-five. The fare is around AUD 25.90 one way.

Pickup is kerbside outside baggage claim at Terminals 1, 3 and 4. That last detail matters because this is the only SkyBus route that stops at T3 — the other three services skip it. If you land internationally at T2, walk along the frontage to the neighbouring terminal; the buildings sit in a row and it takes a couple of minutes.

One thing that catches people: SkyBus does not accept Myki. The state transport card that works on every tram, train and public bus in Victoria is no good here. It is a separate ticket, bought online or at the kerb.

The Myki route, for a fifth of the price

There is a genuinely cheap way in and it involves the 901 SmartBus. This is an ordinary Victorian route bus, not an airport coach, and it runs on a normal Myki fare — roughly AUD 5.30, plus AUD 6 once for the card itself if you do not already have one.

Ride the 901 to Broadmeadows, then take a Craigieburn line train into the city. About an hour all told with the change. That is twenty minutes longer than SkyBus at peak and twenty dollars cheaper, which for a solo traveller with a backpack is an easy decision and for a family with four suitcases is not.

Where Southern Cross drops you

Southern Cross anchors the western end of the Melbourne grid. Every V/Line regional train in Victoria leaves from it, so Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo are all reachable from the same building. The free tram zone begins outside the doors and covers the whole central grid, which means once you are here, getting anywhere inside the city costs nothing.

Docklands is immediately behind the station and Southbank is across the river. Bourke Street Mall and the laneways are a ten-minute walk east.

Taxis, and the meter

Melbourne does not use flat airport zones — cabs here are metered, so the CBD costs whatever the traffic decides, usually AUD 70 to 75. The route uses the Tullamarine Freeway, which has a tolled section; that is included in the fare but becomes your problem if you drive yourself.

Pre-booked cars run AUD 85 to 125 and the price is agreed before you fly, which on a metered route is the substantive difference rather than a comfort upgrade. A crawl down the freeway at five o'clock costs the taxi passenger real money and the transfer passenger nothing. For four people the fixed fare lands close to four SkyBus tickets and finishes at the hotel instead of a station concourse.

Why not to hire a car for the city

Melbourne's CBD is unusually hostile to drivers, and not only because of parking costs. The grid uses hook turns — where you turn right from the left lane, waiting in front of the traffic, so that trams can pass — and they unnerve almost everyone who has not grown up with them. Add trams sharing every major road, paid parking throughout and a one-way system, and driving in the centre is slower and more stressful than not.

Hire at Tullamarine if the Great Ocean Road, the Yarra Valley or the Mornington Peninsula is on your list. For a few days in the city, the free tram zone and a Myki card cover everything.