BusVic, the industry body representing Victoria's family owned bus companies, has released advocacy in time for this year's state election.
BusVic background
Never heard of BusVic? There have been times when the Association was legally and politically influential. Most notably in the late 1980s when it supported a successful Supreme Court challenge to the Cain government's bungled bus contracting (the Waverley Transit case - see AUSTLII transcripts for 1988 and 1989).
And in the early 2000s its CEO John Stanley was the most effective advocate for what became the state's biggest ever bus service expansion program in the 2005 State Budget and delivered under the 2006 MOTC plan. Your bus probably runs on Sundays due to the minimum service standards campaign that BusVic ran, and the Bracks-Brumby government largely adopted.
A continuing BusVic theme has been to resist the takeover of local family run bus operators by government and later large, often multinational, private companies. The value of family bus operators even became the basis of a PhD thesis by a former BusVic CEO in 2016 and a budget day protest at parliament in 2018. BusVic won significant concessions but the trend towards operator consolidation continued.
The larger operators still need an industry body but now prefer the multimodal Public Transport Association of Australia and New Zealand (PTAANZ). PTAANZ's corporate approach and style is different to the small business-oriented BusVic. In contrast PTAANZ's leadership more visibly reflects the successful cross-industry Women in Transport movement and contemporary political leadership (four of the five ministers responsible for public transport since 2014 have been women) with the Women Who Move Nations podcast contributing to this profile.
If PTAANZ has advocated for improved service levels on public transport it has been in a private rather than public capacity, with no pre-election advocacy documents sighted. Its members being dependent on government contracts would likely call for an approach more subtle than that available to independent groups such as the PTUA or even the (to be abolished) Infrastructure Victoria.
With the metropolitan route bus battle lost, BusVic's strength today is highest amongst charter, regional and school bus operators. Reflecting this, association emphasis has shifted to preserving local ownership of school and regional bus runs, with the Your Community Asset website established.
This has also included the Connecting People Victoria document that you can read here.
Connecting People Victoria advocacy document
Connecting People Victoria has ten policy directions. Not surprisingly, protecting existing school and regional bus contract arrangements is number one.
Others also of interest include (2) service improvements and minimum service standards, (3) statewide myki ticketing, (5) improved road maintenance and (6) dedicated authorised officers for buses.
Before the 2022 State Election Bus Vic presented a list of very specific bus upgrade requests split roughly evenly between metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria. Large parts were adopted almost word for word by the Liberal/National Coalition for its 65 point bus platform for that election.
Reflecting its changed industry role, Bus Vic has taken a different approach in 2026. All of their specific asks are regional. If implemented they would make a significant different to bus services in many areas outside Melbourne. However readers should note that priorities largely reflect the interests of Association members. For example the complex Wodonga, Mildura and Shepparton town networks have high needs for reform but these are not operated by members so do not feature.
Still, while not having many metropolitan members, Connecting People Victoria nevertheless covers off Melbourne bus service needs in its second point. Key asks include the establishment of minimum public transport service standards for all Victorian commuters such as:
• 15 minute bus services in all of Melbourne’s interface council areas
• A bus service aligned to all metropolitan train arrivals at major stops and interchanges
• 20 minute services for all other inner metro and regional bus services
• The extension of all routes on Sunday to accommodate weekend commuters
If implemented these would greatly improve the usefulness of buses across Melbourne. They are very similar in concept to the bus part of PTUA's Priority Transport Investments that I reviewed here.
Accordingly I welcome BusVic's contribution and hope that it and similar documents (such as those from the PTUA and the Metropolitan Transport Forum) will inform the agenda for public transport service improvements in the coming state election campaign.
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