Bus operators in Sydney


, Australia is served by a number of bus operators, with the state government's State Transit Authority the largest operator in Sydney and ComfortDelGro Australia the largest operator in New South Wales as of September 2018 when the company took-over Forest Coach Lines. Other major operators include Busways, Transdev NSW and Transit Systems Sydney. Most services are provided as part of the city's integrated public transport system, with routes, fares, service levels, fleet specifications and customer service standards determined by Transport for NSW. A small number of services operate outside of this network.

History

Until the 1990s all of Sydney's private bus services were run by family owned companies. The Passenger Transport Act 1990 requiring average fleet ages to be maintained at no more than 12 years and minimum service levels, resulted in many of the smaller operators selling out to larger operators.
But even these larger operators such as Baxter's, Busways, North & Western, Shorelink, South Trans, Transit First and Westbus, were still owned by Australian families. In the late 1990s and early 2000s multi-national transport operators including Connex, ComfortDelGro, National Express and Transdev began to buy up some of these larger operators.
In March 2004 the Minister for Transport released the final report of Barrie Unsworth's Review of Bus Services in NSW. At that stage Sydney's bus operating contracts were divided into 87 contract areas. After recommendations from Unsworth's report, the contract regions were consolidated into 15 regions with seven year contracts negotiated with the operators. These contracts are known as Sydney Metropolitan Bus Service Contracts.

Contract regions

Bus contracts in Sydney are known as the Sydney Metropolitan Bus Service Contracts. There are 14 contract regions as of January 2018.

List of current bus operators in Sydney

In the past, many of Sydney's bus services were operated by small companies, particularly in the middle and outer suburbs. Some of these companies only operated one or two routes. Most operated before the current revised route numbers and contract areas were introduced.
Most defunct operators either had their companies acquired, had all their services transferred to other operators, merged to form larger companies, or renamed. A change of ownership without a change of operator name is not considered defunct. Some operators do not operate public routes or services anymore but still operate as charter companies.

Currently charter/tour operators

These operators, though not operating public routes anymore, still operate charter and/or tour services.