Two strikes and you are out, the new rules for Melbourne taxi and rideshare drivers

A Melbourne taxi or rideshare driver found guilty by a court of two offences from a short list, from overcharging a rank passenger to refusing a passenger with a guide dog, now loses accreditation, and Safe Transport Victoria publishes the name, the conduct and the outcome on a public register that keeps a record visible for a period the regulator does not publish. The last of three tranches of Victoria’s commercial passenger vehicle reforms took effect on 1 August 2026, and the 1 September 2026 deadline for every accredited driver to tell the regulator which booking companies they drive for has passed. Every accredited driver is covered.

Where the rules come from

The changes come from the Transport Legislation Amendment Act 2025, whose two strikes rule Gabrielle Williams, then Minister for Public and Active Transport, announced in May 2025. Safe Transport Victoria’s own reforms page puts the mandatory display of QR codes in commercial passenger vehicles at 1 March 2026, the two strikes cancellation rule and the false signage offence at 1 July 2026, and the service refusal offence at 1 August 2026.

Williams then left the portfolio. In the Carroll ministry of 4 August 2026 she became Deputy Premier and Minister for Education, and Vicki Ward is Minister for Public Transport. Safe Transport Victoria’s news page has carried nothing new since 29 July 2026.

What a strike is and what earns one

A strike is a finding of guilt for one of a short list of offences, and two strikes mean the driver loses accreditation. A complaint on its own is not a strike.

Two strikes is the mandatory path, not the only one. The reforms also let the regulator take discretionary disciplinary action over conduct that falls short of a court finding. Williams described the intent to AAP on 9 May 2025: “There might be complaints made about an individual driver that are very similar but fall below that conviction threshold, it still allows the regulator to do something about it.”

What the register publishes about you

The register of permission holders has long been a lookup of whether an accreditation or vehicle registration is active. From 1 July 2026 it also carries disciplinary action taken against drivers. The regulator’s register page, updated 21 August 2026, says entries appear “once all rights of appeal timeframes have been exhausted” and that “infringements, including infringement warnings, and education actions will not be published”. Its reforms page says an entry shows “the driver’s name, the outcome of the action and a short description of what happened”, and that only actions taken from 1 July 2026 are included.

Williams framed the purpose on 24 June 2026: “Our name and shame register will stop repeat wrong-doers from quietly moving to another provider and getting back behind the wheel.” She added: “Most drivers do the right thing every day. We’re making sure the small minority who don’t are held to account.”

One practical point is easy to miss. The live register at publicregister.safetransport.vic.gov.au is a search form, not a list. It looks up drivers by six-digit accreditation number, vehicles by plate and booking service providers by name. There is no browsable roll of struck-off drivers, and as at 17 September 2026 Safe Transport Victoria has published no count of cancellations under the two-strikes provision, so whether any driver has yet lost accreditation under it cannot be established from its public pages.

The affiliation deadline that passed on 1 September

It is now a condition of every driver accreditation to tell the regulator whether you accept bookings, whether you are an “associated driver” for a booking service provider, and the provider’s name. The regulator set 1 September 2026 as the date for existing drivers to lodge through the ST Vic User Portal, and its 24 June notice says a driver who works with several providers must list each one.

A driver who missed the date is now in breach of an accreditation condition. Nothing on the regulator’s site describes what it is doing with late lodgements. The sensible course is to lodge now. The portal at portal.safetransport.vic.gov.au takes a name and email, matches them against your Victorian driver licence and emails a generated password; once in, you can download your accreditation certificate, see your registrations and update the affiliation record.

The affiliation record is also what the signage offence hangs on. From 1 July 2026 a driver must not provide a service in a vehicle displaying a provider’s signage unless the driver is an associated driver of that provider, and the regulator cites a penalty of 5 penalty units. A sticker for a provider you no longer drive for is exposure you can remove with a scraper.

QR codes and cameras

QR codes have been compulsory since 1 March 2026. The regulator requires one working approved code, at least 9 centimetres square, on a side window facing passengers or on the rear seating, within reach of back-seat passengers. The code is free: Safe Transport Victoria supplies a PDF and the driver prints it. Scanning it opens the regulator’s complaints form, so a passenger can report “fare issues, safety concerns or driver behaviour” without knowing the accreditation number. The regulator says a missing code “may result in a fine amounting to 1 penalty unit” ($209.10).

For taxis, 1 July 2026 changed what the camera does. An unbooked vehicle must now use an approved security camera system that records audio as well as video, with a minimum resolution of 480 TVL and a “recording in progress” notice for passengers. The regulator’s gazetted minimum standards of 1 July 2026 require a provider to “securely retain recordings for a minimum of 14 days”, up from 72 hours. Access is limited to a Designated Person registered by the provider for an authorised purpose, plus the regulator and Victoria Police, and dashcams cannot be used for this purpose. Audio in booked vehicles is optional, and in July 2026 the regulator said its guidance for booked services was still being finalised.

Refusing a fare from 1 August

From 1 August 2026 a driver who is available to provide an unbooked service must not refuse a person who requests it, unless one of a set of listed exceptions applies. A short trip is not an exception. Williams put it this way on 24 June 2026: “Turning away some of our most vulnerable passengers because it’s a short trip or because they’re travelling with an assistance animal has no place in this industry.”

The same date widened notifiable incident reporting. Drivers, providers and vehicle owners must report, within 10 business days through the regulator’s online form, any surcharge above the permitted amount, any refusal of an assistance animal, and any complaint alleging sexual assault, harassment, indecent exposure, assault, threats or intimidation; for unbooked services, overcharging and unlawful refusals are reportable too. A report is not a strike, but it puts the matter in front of a regulator that can prosecute.

Industry reaction on the record dates from the announcement. AAP reported on 9 May 2025 that Victorian Taxi Association director Peter Valentine said audio recording protected both sides because “either one can be the offender”, and questioned enforcement: “If you’ve got 90,000 drivers, do you think three people can control them?” Transport Workers Union national secretary Michael Kaine called the package “thoughtless demonising of transport workers”. No statement from either body on the July and August 2026 tranches was found as at 17 September 2026.

What changed for fares

The Essential Services Commission’s transport page now says it no longer regulates costs related to commercial passenger vehicles following amendments to the Commercial Passenger Vehicle Industry Act 2017 in 2026. Its last act was an assessment released on 1 September 2025 that lifted Melbourne’s unbooked fares by 2.8 per cent from 23 September 2025, to a $5.25 daytime flagfall and $2.037 a kilometre.

From 1 July 2026 the maximum unbooked fares for metropolitan Melbourne, Frankston, Dandenong and the Mornington Peninsula are a $5.40 flagfall, $2.10 a kilometre above 21 km/h and 70 cents a minute below it between 9am and 5pm; $6.75, $2.30 and 80 cents overnight; and $8.00, $2.55 and 85 cents at peak, which runs from 10pm to 4am on Friday and Saturday nights, all day on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, and from 6pm on New Year’s Eve. The high occupancy fee for five or more passengers is $18.35 and the cleaning fee is capped at $123.75; tolls and the airport rank fee pass through.

The service levy is $1.25 on every trip starting in Victoria.

If you drive for a living in Melbourne, three checks this week cover most of the risk. Log in to portal.safetransport.vic.gov.au and confirm your booking service provider affiliation is lodged and current, because that condition is already overdue if you have not done it. Search your own six-digit accreditation number at publicregister.safetransport.vic.gov.au to see what a passenger or a provider sees. Then look at the car: one approved QR code within reach of the back seat, no sticker for a provider you no longer drive for, and, if it is a taxi, a camera system that records audio and holds 14 days. Remember that a strike is a court finding, not a complaint, and that the register lists a disciplinary action only after the appeal window closes, so a disciplinary notice from the regulator is the moment to get advice. Safe Transport Victoria answers 1800 638 802 from 8.30am to 4.30pm on weekdays, driver accreditation questions go to contact@safetransport.vic.gov.au, and the notifiable incident and complaints forms sit under the Support menu of its website.