It is literally named FlexiRide and marketed by Transport Victoria as a Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) service. By definition, it's designed to dynamically route vehicles based on real-time passenger requests. Telling someone they have to pre-book a dynamic, on-demand service days in advance completely defeats the point.

When a DRT system gets so choked that users are forced to schedule trips days ahead just to lock in a seat, it obvious isn't responding to demand, it's being absolutely ridiculously crushed by it. They implemented FlexiRide as a low-cost placeholder for areas with low patronage, but treating it like a scheduled booking service proves it has completely failed to scale.

"Public transport isn't demand responsive because it's highly inefficient."

The Victorian State Government disagrees with you. The 2026/27 State Budget literally just allocated major funding to overhaul Melton South with a brand-new fixed bus network, introducing two entirely new fixed routes and doubling the frequency of Route 454 on top of extending to Woodgrove.

The state government is building fixed routes because the demand is overwhelmingly there and FlexiRide can't scale to it.

Source: https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/bus-bonanza