Vital upgrades to the Cranbourne line to remove the remaining level crossings and duplicate the track will start next year.

The project will remove the last four level crossings along the line and fully duplicate it to enable trains to run every 10 minutes. These works include building a new Merinda Park Station with two new platforms and better facilities for the 1100 passengers who use it each weekday.

Costing more than $1 billion, the Cranbourne Line Upgrade will be delivered in stages to ensure works can be coordinated and completed efficiently. Work is already underway to build a new road bridge over the rail line at Evans Road, with the Greens Road level crossing in Dandenong South the next to go.

Located in a commercial and industrial area, the Greens Road level crossing will be removed by building a new rail bridge over the road, with detailed investigations confirming this as the most suitable design.

Work will start in 2020 and the crossing will be gone by the end of 2022. Work will also start next year to construct eight km of new track between Dandenong and Cranbourne, removing single-track bottlenecks that prevent the introduction of more services. These duplication works – including the rebuilding of Merinda Park Station – will be completed by 2023.

So far 11 level crossings have already been removed on the Cranbourne line, with further technical investigations and community consultation to come for crossings at Webster Street in Dandenong and Camms Road in Cranbourne. These crossings will be removed by 2025 to make the Cranbourne line the first to be completely level crossing-free.

About 39,000 vehicles currently travel through the remaining Cranbourne line level crossings each day, and that figure is forecast to grow by about 41 per cent to about 55,000 by 2026.

The Cranbourne Line Upgrade, together with the Metro Tunnel, will boost reliability, frequency with room for 121,000 extra peak hour passengers each week and travel times cut by up to 50 minutes a day.

It also paves the way for a future extension of the line to Clyde, with planning already under way.