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Bus Reform and Service Improvements in NSW

The Government's bus reform program aims to develop bus services that reflect community needs. In metropolitan Sydney the new contracts introduce consistent service standards, clear performance requirements and sustainable funding. For the first time, these contracts incorporate community consultation and regular service reviews into service planning.

Negotiations are underway for new contracts in Newcastle, Wollongong, the Central Coast, the Lower Hunter and the Blue Mountains and a process for developing new planning, funding and contracting arrangements for bus services in country NSW has commenced.

For information on bus reform in rural and regional NSW, follow this link: Bus Reform in Country NSW.

The Model Contract

As part of the Bus Reform process, the NSW Government said it would make the terms of the new contracts that are not commercially sensitive available to the general public.

The model Metropolitan Bus System Contract and related documents may be downloaded as either a Word document or a PDF file from the contract downloads page.

Legislation

Bus services are regulated under the Passenger Transport Act and its Regulations.

As part of the Bus Reform process, the NSW Parliament passed two Acts that made changes to the Passenger Transport Act 1990 (link to copy of the Act on the www.legislation.nsw.gov.au website) in order to provide a framework for the implementation of Bus Reform. These were:

  • The Passenger Transport Amendment (Bus Reform) Act 2004, which came into force in July 2004 to provide the statutory framework for new contracting, funding and service planning arrangements; and
  • the Passenger Transport Amendment (Maintenance of Bus Services) Act 2005, which came into force in July 2005. The Maintenance of Bus Services Act provides a statutory step-in scheme to allow the Ministry to ensure services continue to be provided to the community during the implementation of the new arrangements.