Re: Bus Privatization

[David McLoughlin <davemclNOSPAM@iprolink.co.nz>]

Aidan Stanger wrote:
> 

> >
> The bus system in Adelaide was privatised by area rather than individual
> routes. Melbourne did it the same way AIUI.

Melbourne leased its train and tram systems to private operators by
area  (two groups of tram routes and two groups of train routes), but
the bus routes are a different matter. Almost all Melbourne's bus routes
are cross-suburban routes, often feeding railway stations. Trams have
always been the main form of street public transport to and from the CBD
(the tramway system is one of the largest in the world, with 30 routes,
two of which are 20 km long and most of the rest around 12 km long. It's
still expanding, BTW, and 100 new low-floor Combinos and Citadis trams
are on order).

The cross-suburban bus routes were almost all privately owned from the
outset, and were owned route by route by particular operators, ie,
Ventura, Bell Street Bus Company, Grenda. These companies still own and
operate the routes they always ran, except they now get a subsidy to do
so.

Melbourne also had the "tramway buses" which ran on the few former
cable-tram routes that were not converted to electric trams (the cable
trams lasted until 1940), on a couple of suburban former tram routes
that were dieselised decades ago, and on a number of routes taken over
from private operators that went bust.

The "tramway bus" routes were all sold off to private companies a few
years ago, route by route.


David McLoughlin
Auckland New Zealand