The new Public Transport Victoria iPhone app will be replaced with a rebranded version of the old Metlink app after user complaints.

The new Public Transport Victoria iOS app will be pulled from Apple's App Store and substituted with the app it replaced, after scathing feedback from users.

CEO of Public Transport Victoria Ian Dobbs says he admits that they handled the roll out of the new version of the app badly.

"We've listened to the feedback that we've got, which has been significant to be fair, and what we're going to do is we're going to put the old app back in the iTunes store," says Ian Dobbs.

"It will be rebranded obviously as a PTV app," he says.

He defended the new app, saying it was the way it was introduced that was the problem.

"We've decided that the thing we really did wrong here wasn't so much the new app - people are not used to it it's got lots of great features," he told Jon Faine.

"Rather than put a new app in the store that they could have loaded in tandem with the old one we put it in... as an upgrade," says Mr Dobbs.

"What it actually did with people, it took away their choice, it actually overrode the older app and as a result they felt disenfranchised," he says.

"We've listened to that I'm big enough to say that in that sense we've made an error."

Ian Dobbs says the new app is in many ways better than the old one they are re-introducing.

"I think it's just very different," he says. "We've had good feedback on it as well."

"I think if you're used to the older app then the new app can seem to be so radically different that people don't like it."

"We probably do need to simplify, we need to make the user interface easier," he says.

The new app is awaiting approval from Apple and will be available within weeks.