Bus deregulation in Australia?

[johncrossley]

Australia, developed country now turning to private bus companies and starting a little bit of deregulation.

Does anyone have any more details about this?

 

[Pakenhamtrain]

The only thing thats happened recently is Sydney's government bus services were contracted out to private operators.
All Australian states still very much regulate things. Buses are still very much the domain of the relevant state transport department. Most if not all are put out to tender.

 

[johncrossley]

@markymark2000 What was your example of Australian bus deregulation?

 

[markymark2000]

@markymark2000 What was your example of Australian bus deregulation?

Sydney was where it was reported as deregulation.

 

[johncrossley]

Sydney was where it was reported as deregulation.

Sounds like from @Pakenhamtrain that isn't the case. In the past I have occasionally seen bus services being described as deregulated in foreign media when they mean tendered.

 

[XAM2175]

Sydney was where it was reported as deregulation.

Sounds like from @Pakenhamtrain that isn't the case. In the past I have occasionally seen bus services being described as deregulated in foreign media when they mean tendered.

To be specific, the State Transit Authority of New South Wales was fully privatised early last year. Despite the name, since 2017 its entire purpose had been to operate bus services in the Sydney region. The privatisation moves all of Sydney to a tender model, like already used in Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth, and most easily explained to people in the UK as being akin to London.

Brisbane and Canberra still have government-operated buses; by Brisbane City Council and the ACT Government respectively.

All of these schemes are organised through multimodal authorities, again like London, and none of it is even remotely near "deregulation" in the British sense.

 

[markymark2000]

To be specific, the State Transit Authority of New South Wales was fully privatised early last year. Despite the name, since 2017 its entire purpose had been to operate bus services in the Sydney region. The privatisation moves all of Sydney to a tender model, like already used in Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth, and most easily explained to people in the UK as being akin to London.

Brisbane and Canberra still have government-operated buses; by Brisbane City Council and the ACT Government respectively.

All of these schemes are organised through multimodal authorities, again like London, and none of it is even remotely near "deregulation" in the British sense.

Ahh, that's different to how it was being promoted.

In which case, I apologise for wrongly saying buses were deregulated as it seems that I was misinformed and when reading up on it, my searches can't have been linking to the right sites.

 

[XAM2175]

Ahh, that's different to how it was being promoted.

In which case, I apologise for wrongly saying buses were deregulated as it seems that I was misinformed and when reading up on it, my searches can't have been linking to the right sites.

No worries, Sydney's set-up was admittedly quite unusual, and I can see how "government-owned operator is broken up and handed over to private firms" would gloss as deregulation to somebody who wasn't familiar with the pre-existing tendering arrangements.

 

[Pakenhamtrain]

To be specific, the State Transit Authority of New South Wales was fully privatised early last year. Despite the name, since 2017 its entire purpose had been to operate bus services in the Sydney region. The privatisation moves all of Sydney to a tender model, like already used in Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth, and most easily explained to people in the UK as being akin to London.

Brisbane and Canberra still have government-operated buses; by Brisbane City Council and the ACT Government respectively.

All of these schemes are organised through multimodal authorities, again like London, and none of it is even remotely near "deregulation" in the British sense.

It was a weird set up in that STA had an exclusive contract to run region 7,8 and 9.

Melbourne is even more odd. The only thing that is out to competitive tender is the former MetBus services. Everything else hasn't ever been tendered out. The same operators have operated the same routes in thier area for donkeys. There's even two different contracts. A 7 year one where the operator gets to keep all the vehicles, staff and IP and A 10 year one where they have to.

 

[SLTRegular]

Sta also had Region 6 upto quite recently and also had a Presence on the Parramatta to Liverpool Tway with the 15** series Volvo's which are now all with Transit Systems in R3 and some got swapped out for STA Bendybus's

 

[railfan99]

Melbourne is even more odd. The only thing that is out to competitive tender is the former MetBus services. Everything else hasn't ever been tendered out. The same operators have operated the same routes in thier area for donkeys. There's even two different contracts. A 7 year one where the operator gets to keep all the vehicles, staff and IP and A 10 year one where they have to.

Way back, the then Bus Proprietors Association challenged a tendering decision in the Victorian Supreme Court. IIRC it was successful in retaining intellectual property over the routes, so that explains why there's not been tendering.