Traffic volumes haven’t moved much in March despite the fuel crisis. I looked at the data.

I pulled traffic count data from four SCATS monitoring sites across Naarm covering the whole of March 2026. SCATS is VicRoads' traffic signal system; the counts are real vehicle volumes at major intersections, not estimates.
I selected five high-volume arterial sites across different parts of the city: Punt/Swan in the centre, Monash/Toorak in the south-east, Canterbury/Mitcham in the outer east, Bulla Road in the west, and Greensborough for the north.
Despite panic-induced fuel prices, volume across all four sites is generally flat throughout the month (the dips are just weekends). People are not responding to price signals or the broader concerns around fuel supply.
PT across Victoria is now free, so I can see if that moves the needle in April's data if people would like to see. Please feel free to nominate other intersections too.
At some point prices will get high enough to force a change. But we could just drive less now 🙁