Largest Bus Operator in Australia & This World

[CityRail]

I wonder in terms of fleet size, who is the largest bus operator in Australia and how does it position with the same number in the world?

My Observations from Fleetlist:

1. State Transit Authority of New South Wales (2209 Buses) - Largest Bus Operator in Australia
2. ComfortDelgro Cabcharge (1527 Buses) - Will lose at least 200 Buses and potentially become third largest operator from October 2013.
3. Brisbane City Council | Brisbane Transport (1271 Buses)
4. Veolia Transdev Australia (1046 Buses)
5. Transit Systems Australia (741 Buses) - Will grow to 900 Buses + once they operate Sydney Transit (Region 3) from October 2013.
6. Busways New South Wales (699 Buses) - Will grow to 800 Buses + once Busways operates the entire Region 1 from October 2013.
7. Grendas Corporation (663 Buses)
8. Ventura Group (658 Buses)
9. Transit Australia Group (645 Buses)
10. Australian Capital Territory Internal Omnibus Network (416 Buses)

Compared to some of the Largest Operators in the world:

- Transport International (3994 Buses)
- SBS Transit (4377 Buses)
- Stagecoach (8100 Buses)

Seriously I feel ashamed the largest Australian Bus Operator only consists of 2200 buses compared to a single operator can operate 4400 buses in our neighbouring Singapore. Australia definitely have the highest management quality, skills and expertees to acquire bus operator overseas, allowing more Australian jobs created through an increased demand of Australian built buses being exported overseas.

I am sure if our largest bus operators such as Transit Systems, Busways or even NSW and Qld Governments allow STA and BT operate independently as a private operator, there will be more opportunitries for Australians to shine in this world.

So a few questions:

1. Can you rank, in terms of fleet lists, the largest bus operators in this world?
2. Why Australian Bus Operators have been struggling to expand their business overseas?

[Off The Rails]

Umm, Transperth is number 3, they have 1272 last time I looked.
Have you even checked Perths Fleetlists?

Cheers!

[busrider]

The Grenda and Ventura totals should really be combined since Ventura owns Grenda Group... I also would think that Australian Transit Enterprises http://ate.com.au/structure.html warrants a mention?

[Bus-1809]

Cityrail, I take it you have obviously never heard of Western Australia, as all your observations seem to be from NSW, QLD and ACT... Transperth, which is the main operator in Perth, Western Australia operate a fleet of around 1200 buses, split between 3 Contractors, those being: Australian Transit Enterprises (trading as Perth Area Transport Holdings (PATH) Transit), Transit Syatems Australia (trading as sWAn Transit) and Veolia Transport Perth (trading as Southern Coast Transit).

[CityRail]

Cityrail, I take it you have obviously never heard of Western Australia, as all your observations seem to be from NSW, QLD and ACT... Transperth, which is the main operator in Perth, Western Australia operate a fleet of around 1200 buses, split between 3 Contractors, those being: Australian Transit Enterprises (trading as Perth Area Transport Holdings (PATH) Transit), Transit Syatems Australia (trading as sWAn Transit) and Veolia Transport Perth (trading as Southern Coast Transit).

I've pretty sure the TransPerth has been calculated into different operators they've got. So you should see the number of Swan Transit fleet integrated into Transit Systems Australia.

[Fleet Lists]

Seriously I feel ashamed the largest Australian Bus Operator only consists of 2200 buses compared to a single operator can operate 4400 buses in our neighbouring Singapore. Australia definitely have the highest management quality, skills and expertees to acquire bus operator overseas, allowing more Australian jobs created through an increased demand of Australian built buses being exported overseas.

?
What is there to be ashamed of? It is good to see that the services are still spread across a number of large operators. If you go back 10 or 20 years you would have been battling to see any operators (expect possibly STA in NSW) with more than 1000 buses. And I suspect that as time goes on there will be further amalgamations which will see operators grow at the expenses of the number of operators decreasing as has happening over recent years.

[boronia]

Seriously I feel ashamed the largest Australian Bus Operator only consists of 2200 buses compared to a single operator can operate 4400 buses in our neighbouring Singapore.

Why?

You are comparing areas of roughly the same size, but comparing just ONE operator out of several in Sydney; what is the fleet total of all Sydney operators?

SIN is much more PT oriented than Sydney and has much more intensive services than Sydney overall, and serves a population of about 20% more.

SIN has TWO operators, SBS and SMRT. but the latter is fairly small by comparison.

[mkav]

North America's top 50 motorcoach fleets 2012
http://www.metro-magazine.com/resources ... 2-19-1.pdf cover story and list

North America's top 100 metro bus fleets 2012
http://www.metro-magazine.com/article/s ... enges.aspx cover story
http://www.metro-magazine.com/resources ... top100.pdf list

[Mr OC Benz]

Umm, Transperth is number 3, they have 1272 last time I looked.
Have you even checked Perths Fleetlists?

Cheers!

Transperth is not a bus operator, it is more of a service provider. Buses are operated by several operators (contracted to provide the service) just as it is done or will be done in Sydney and in many other cities (albeit under different conditions).

The entire Transperth fleet also includes the regional branch of around 150 buses which is again operated by various operators under contract.

[boronia]

SIN has TWO operators, SBS and SMRT. but the latter is fairly small by comparison.

SMRT has about 1200 buses. Presumably the 4400 you quoted is just SBS.

SIN residents are discouraged from owning/using cars by Government policy. With such a wonderful PT system, there is little reason to.

[Centralian]

1. Can you rank, in terms of fleet lists, the largest bus operators in this world?

I'm rather excited at the thought of buses in the next world. We already have quite a team of bus professionals out there.

[1whoknows]

Oh - and here I was thinking that the Martian fleet lists were coming on line soon!

[Daniel]

The Marshall's, wait the Martin's... oh the Martian's fleet list!

[mrobsessed]

Why have Australian operators seemingly been struggling to grow their businesses? Regulation (and in the bus industry, thank God for it), Australia is so large that air travel is far more competitive and population density.

[BLBUS]

How can you seriously compare Australia to USA/Singapore. Take a look at the populations, areas its a crazy comparison.

[OLYMPIAN]

And look at the % of people using public transport

Can't compare as Australian are educated to use private car from many years ago

[Tim Williams]

Regarding SBS Transit, I do believe their fleet numbers just around or slightly over 3,000 buses - the figure quoted of 4,377 (that's from memory) would include SMRT buses and possibly other local fleets???

I am in Singapore at the moment and the bus fleets are impressive, particularly of course the new buses SBS Transit's Wright bodied Volvo D/Decks and the M/Benz Citaro's and SMRT's MAN Lions (as they seem to call them).

What is the greatest pleasure to me is go on the buses and the MRT and see no graffiti, scratched windows and other rubbish - pity we cannot get on top of our idiots!

[OLYMPIAN]

Is because Cityrail didnt fine passengers for eating and drinking (include water) on trains and paid area of station

[boronia]

What is the greatest pleasure to me is go on the buses and the MRT and see no graffiti, scratched windows and other rubbish - pity we cannot get on top of our idiots!

The Singapore Government has a wonderful deterrent called the CANE.

Pity our weak willed politicians can't see the benefit of such a device.

[CityRail]

What is the greatest pleasure to me is go on the buses and the MRT and see no graffiti, scratched windows and other rubbish - pity we cannot get on top of our idiots!

Because they do have Cane penalty addition to the shame culture within Asian Communities really stops people from committing these crimes. You can see no buses in China, Hong Kong or Taiwan would have graffiti tags on it even they don't have Cane penalty in their legal system.

In terms of rubbish, it exists everywhere, but clearly cleaning cost in Asian countries is a bit cheaper that they can afford to hire cleaners to clean up when train pull up to their terminus.

[CityRail]

Why have Australian operators seemingly been struggling to grow their businesses? Regulation (and in the bus industry, thank God for it), Australia is so large that air travel is far more competitive and population density.

True. And more importantly, why there's no Australian Operator attempt to purchase or acquire other businesses out of Australia? A lot of bus companies in Asia is simply a mess in their management but they can generate a lot of cash revenue due to their high patronage. Why operators like State Transit Authority of NSW or Busways don't try to buy out other bus companies like KMB or SMRT to diverse their businesses?

[Peter1805]

Ventura Bus Lines/National has more than 1300 buses now, since it acquired Grenda Transit.

This would place it third on your list.

[Whyalla]

If tram operators were included, Yarra Trams would be 10th with 498 trams.

[stajourneyman]

Umm, I think you will find that the Dineen Group with 429 units in total might just nudge ACTION off the list.

[Mercedes]

1. State Transit Authority of New South Wales (2209 Buses) - Largest Bus Operator in Australia
2. ComfortDelgro Cabcharge (1529 Buses)
3. Ventura Group - (1321)
4. Brisbane City Council | Brisbane Transport (1271 Buses)
5. Veolia Transdev Australia (1046 Buses)
6. Transit Systems Australia (741 Buses)
7. Busways New South Wales (699 Buses)
8. Transit Australia Group (645 Buses)
9. Dineen Group (427)
10. ACTION ACT (416)

How does that look?