At this month’s QBIC Conference, NSW Bus Industry Taskforce chair John Lee presented on how Queensland can learn from the review and improve its own bus sector.
Since May 2023, Lee has chaired the Taskforce, which produced multiple reports on ways to fix key issues in NSW’s bus industry.
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He took to the stage in Cairns at the conference to focus on Queensland, drawing on examples from the State of Origin rival.
“Buses move more people than any other mode in Australia, with there being just under 600 million trips annually in Sydney, more than 413 million in Melbourne and 153 million in Brisbane and the Gold Coast,” he says.
“It costs around $6.12 for a taxpayer to fund a bus trip for a single passenger. For rail, it costs $16.59, and for the new Metro rail in Sydney, it costs $21.50, so bus is the most efficient form of transport in Australia, and we need to use this.”
The key issue, Lee says, is that governments all around Australia historically tend to prefer major road and rail infrastructure projects over fixing bus routes and increasing service frequency. With Lee describing the current operator contracting model as a “race to the lowest cost” and a “focus on contract administration rather than good bus operations”, his example of a well-run government and operator relationship for bus services is on the other side of Australia.
“This is where I believe us eastern states can learn off Western Australia’s model between the PTA and all operators,” he says.
“The major matter requiring industry buy-in is how we agree on asset ownership and management in the future.
“Privatisation in Sydney focused on costs and resulted in tens of millions of dollars of losses, service cuts and a lack of drivers. It is and was a shit show, and it’s still not fixed. Brisbane can’t become this.”
Lee says Brisbane’s bus services in the late 20th century gave the city “a big boost”, with the Metro now a “big bonus” as south-east Queensland prepares for the 2032 Olympic Games.
“The Brisbane Olympics will be a bus games, not a rail one like Paris was,” he says.
“Heavy rail doesn’t go to a lot of venues in Brisbane, so let’s start on the bus network now to have them ready by 2028 so they can be at their best in 2032.”
He has four areas he wants the state’s bus industry to consider it’s ready for the global event: how to make bus services vital in the eyes of the community and media, how to attract more investment, what a genuine partnership will look like between government and operators, and the energy transition in the bus industry.
“Imaging buying diesel buses without a fuel tank – you’d think I was mad. The energy transition is the largest change this century, but we need to source the energy first and detail work on infrastructure requirements and plans for depots so that the industry has certainty,” he says.
“The source of the energy is the most important bit, more so than the vehicles. It relies on good relationships involving trust and honesty.”
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