''You actually need a traffic data study, you need the evidence, you need to know how many people are going home at what time and to where,'' Cr Doyle told The Age.

''Once you work that out then you work out the best way of moving them and for some people that may be short haul tram, it might be we find there is a huge preponderance of people needing to get home to South Yarra, Richmond and South Melbourne and you can do short haul trams to do that,'' he said.

He said longer trips to the growth suburbs could be handled by buses — ''because that's when the roads are less clogged and they are a whole lot cheaper than running train sets''.

''The way Sydney and Brisbane has handled it (late night transport demand) is through buses... they went to 24-hour and seven days a week... we still don't do that,'' Cr Doyle said.

Public Transport Users Association president Daniel Bowen backed the call for all-night public transport.