Yarra Trams Pay Rates 2026: EA Pay Grades & Award Floor

Yarra Trams runs the Melbourne tram network — the largest in the world — under franchise to the Victorian Government, now operated by the Yarra Journey Makers consortium led by Transdev and John Holland. Tram drivers, authorised officers, depot and rolling stock staff and infrastructure crews make up the workforce.

Yarra Trams pay is set by its enterprise agreements (below), which carried across to the new operator under transfer-of-business rules. The federal safety net is the Rail Industry Award 2020, tabled below; agreement rates for drivers sit well above the award ladder.

The federal awards relevant to Yarra Trams roles:

• Rail Industry Award 2020 (MA000015)

Workforce snapshot. In the 2024-25 Workplace Gender Equality Agency reports, YARRA JOURNEY MAKERS PTY LTD reported 2,656 employees (part of the Transdev Australasia Pty Ltd group, 6,322 employees in total, 5.5% casual and 21.7% women). Source: WGEA 2025 Public Data File, data.gov.au (CC-BY 3.0 AU).

The Rail Industry Award 2020 (MA000015) is the federal safety net under every rail operator's agreement. Its operations-stream base rates (weekly ÷ 38) are:

Rail agreements pay well above this ladder, so the award matters as the floor when an agreement expires and as the benchmark in bargaining, not as your payslip. The award also publishes shift, weekend and annualised variants of each level that are not shown here.

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, current-operative rates (1 July 2026 annual wage review). Casual figures add the 25% casual loading.

Enterprise agreements set rates above the award, with their own classification structures and allowances. Current Yarra Trams agreements in our corpus (1 in total):

• Yarra Trams Enterprise Agreement 2023 - Rolling Stock, Administration, Technical & Professional — approved February 2024, nominal expiry 30 June 2027.

We don't reproduce agreement dollar figures here — the agreement covering your site, state and stream is the document to read. Find your agreement, then your classification, then your pay point, and compare it with your payslip. The award tables on this page are the floor every one of these agreements must beat.

General award-compliance issues that come up across the rail sector. This is a checklist for your own payslip, not a finding about Yarra Trams:

• Agreement pay grades not applied after a transfer of business or franchise change.
• Rostering and shift-change penalties under the agreement missed on short-notice changes.
• Unpaid sign-on, handover and travel at the start and end of shifts.
• Allowances (meal, travel, relieving) dropped when payroll systems change.

Match your payslip to your classification in the agreement (or the award tables above), and price any gap with our back-pay calculator. Raise it in writing with payroll or your manager first — most underpayments are fixed at that step. Unresolved, the Fair Work Ombudsman (13 13 94) recovers underpayments at no cost, up to six years back, and your union can run the claim for you. Not sure which instrument covers you? Ask our AI advisor with your role and location.