Heeding the warnings of top transport bureaucrats and police, with Easter one of the deadliest times to be on the road and seven people losing their lives over the long weekend in 2023, Mr Hayes decided to take the train.

"I was looking forward to getting on the train, having a couple of drinks with some friends and safely getting home," he said.

But after checking the timetable, Mr Hayes found out that buses would be running instead of trains between Wollongong and Sutherland, due to trackwork across the four days of the long weekend.

While Mr Hayes and anyone else from the Illawarra hoping to travel to Sydney have the option of driving or taking the train replacement bus, the decision to schedule trackwork over the long weekend forces more people onto the roads, at a time when the government is warning people to get off the motorway, if they can.

"If it was just [Good Friday], fine, maybe if it was two days, but to remove that option throughout all four days, I just wonder whether that is the best decision for the safety of travelling on a long weekend," Mr Hayes said.

A Transport for NSW spokesperson said essential track work was carried out during non-peak periods.

"We avoid peak times for essential trackwork so people can get to work and school without disruption," the spokesperson said.

"Long weekends as well as the school holidays give us an opportunity to get critical work done while patronage is reduced."

Trackwork is a common occurrence over the Easter long weekend, with buses replacing trains in 2022 and 2023.

Patronage also fell during the week of Easter, according to Transport for NSW data, with 101,876 Opal trips on the South Coast line in 2023, compared with 137,782 the week before and 33,744 trips in the week of Easter in 2022, compared to 48,153 the week before.

Opal data is not collected on train replacement buses, as travellers do not have to tap on.

But in a chicken and egg scenario, travellers are discouraged from taking train trips when trackwork occurs, leading to lower patronage during those times.

Illawarra commuters were warned that a lengthy period of train replacement buses would occur in 2023 and into 2024, as the transport authority tackled a backlog of repair work on the "fragile" line, but this was later shortened to six months.

Mr Hayes acknowledged the importance of repairs to the one passenger rail line connecting the Illawarra and greater Sydney, however suggested that perhaps there needed to be better coordination between road safety messaging and public transport availability.

"There's millions of dollars spent on campaigns to tell people to drive safely, to avoid the pinch points, to plan their trip to reduce the horrible road toll that can happen on long weekends," he said.

"If someone wants to do the safest thing, to get the train, that's removed, not for one day, not for two, but all four days of the long weekend."