Kinetic Gold Coast, formerly Surfside Buslines, is an Australian bus operator on the Gold Coast in

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

. It operates services under contract to Translink in Queensland and in the adjoining

Tweed Valley The Tweed River is a river situated in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia. From the middle reaches of its course, the state boundary between New South Wales and Queensland is located approximately north. The river rises ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

under contract to

Transport for NSW Transport for NSW (TfNSW) is a Government of New South Wales, New South Wales Government transport services and roads List of New South Wales government agencies, agency established on 1 November 2011. The agency is a different entity to the NSW ...

. It is a subsidiary of Kinetic.

History

Until June 1989, Surfside was owned by

Greyhound The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a dog breed, breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Some are kept as show dogs or pets. Greyhounds are defined as a tall, muscular, smooth-c ...

owner Russell Penfold when it was sold to Joe and Tony Calabro with 56 buses. In 1993, Tweed Bus Service was purchased with 51 buses, followed by Gold Coast Citybus on 21 February 1995, Springbrook-Mudgeeraba Bus Service with approximately twelve buses on 1 March 1995, Gold Coast Tourist Shuttle was purchased in September 1998 and Coomera Bus Lines in May 2001. In 2008, the Calabro's consolidated their bus companies under the

Transit Australia Group Transit Australia Group (TAG) was one of Australia's leading mass transit specialists headquartered on the Gold Coast in Queensland. The company operated Sunbus ( Sunbus Cairns, Sunbus Magnetic Island, Sunbus Rockhampton, Sunbus Sunshine C ...

brand Gold Coast Tourist Shuttle was sold to Skybus and rebranded as Skybus Gold Coast in November 2017. In April 2019, Transit Australia Group was purchased by AATS Group, the parent company of SkyBus and majority owned by

OPTrust OPTrust, officially the OPSEU Pension Trust, is a legal trust formed by the contractual agreement between the two plan sponsors, Ontario Public Service Employees Union ( OPSEU) and the Government of Ontario. It manages one of Canada's largest pe ...

. In August 2019, AATS Group rebranded Kinetic. In 2022, the Surfside Buslines brand was retired in favour of Kinetic.

Services

In Queensland, Surfside operates services from

Beenleigh Beenleigh is a town and suburb in the City of Logan, Queensland, Australia. In the , the suburb of Beenleigh had a population of 8,425 people. A government survey for the new town was conducted in 1866. The town is the terminus for the Beenle ...

on the north of the Gold Coast as far south as

Tweed Heads Tweed Heads is a coastal city at the mouth of the Tweed River in the Northern Rivers region of the state of New South Wales, Australia. Tweed Heads is the northernmost town in New South Wales, and is located in the Tweed Shire local government ...

just over the border with New South Wales. In New South Wales it operates services from Tweed Heads as far south as

Murwillumbah Murwillumbah ( ) is a town in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia, in the Tweed Shire, on the Tweed River. Sitting on the south eastern foothills of the McPherson Range in the Tweed Volcano valley, Murwillumbah is 848&nbs ...

and Pottsville.

Ticketing

In Queensland, Translink's

go card Go, GO, G.O., or Go! may refer to: Arts and entertainment Games and sport * Go (game), a board game for two players * '' Travel Go'' (formerly ''Go – The International Travel Game''), a game based on world travel * Go, the starting position ...

ticketing system applies. In New South Wales,

ticketing applies.

Fleet

In the 1970s, Surfside built up a fleet of

Leyland National The Leyland National is an integrally constructed British step-floor single-decker bus manufactured in large quantities between 1972 and 1985. It was developed as a joint project between two UK nationalised industries – the National Bus Com ...

s. In the 1980s some

Volvo B59 The Volvo B59 was a rear-engined bus chassis manufactured by Volvo in Sweden between 1970 and 1979. The first Volvo B59 was delivered to the Københavns Sporveje (The City Transport Authority in Copenhagen, Denmark) in 1970, and was fitted with a ...

and Volvo B10Rs and

Volvo B10M The Volvo B10M is a mid-engine design, mid-engined city bus and coach (bus), coach chassis manufactured by Volvo Buses, Volvo between 1978 and 2003. It succeeded the Volvo B58, B58 and was equipped with the same 9.6-litre horizontally mounted Vo ...

L articulateds were purchased. Following the sale to the Calabros, large numbers of ex

ACTION Action may refer to: * Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person * Action principles the heart of fundamental physics * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video gam ...

Volvo B58 The Volvo B58 was a mid-engined bus chassis manufactured by Volvo in Sweden from 1966 until early 1982. It was succeeded by the B10M. Operators In the United Kingdom, it was sold to many major operators including Wallace Arnold and Park's of H ...

MAN SL200 The MAN SL200 was a transit bus manufactured by MAN between 1973 and 1988, and was based on the first generation German VöV-Standard-Bus body design. More than 5500 units were built of the standard left-hand drive version. There were also severa ...

s and SG192 articulateds were purchased to replace the Leyland Nationals. Amongst the buses purchased with Tweed Bus Service were

Leyland Tiger The Leyland Tiger, also known as the B43, was a mid-engined bus and coach chassis manufactured by Leyland between 1981 and 1992. This name had previously been used for a front-engined bus built between 1927 and 1968. It replaced the Leyland L ...

s and Hinos. To replace the Gold Coast Citybus fleet, ex

Brisbane Transport Transport for Brisbane, previously called Brisbane Transport'','' is an organisational division of the Brisbane City Council, responsible through its related Council Committee for providing policy and advice to Brisbane City Council, and for d ...

and

TransAdelaide TransAdelaide was a publicly owned cooperation in Adelaide, South Australia, and operated the city's Railways in Adelaide, suburban rail, Trams in Adelaide, tram and Buses in Adelaide, bus services. It took responsibilities from the State Trans ...

Volvo B59s and ex

State Transit Authority The State Transit Authority of New South Wales, also referred to as State Transit, was an agency of the Government of New South Wales operating bus services in Sydney. Superseding the Urban Transit Authority in 1989, it was also responsible for ...

Mercedes-Benz O305 The Mercedes-Benz O305 is a single deck, double deck or articulated bus manufactured by Mercedes-Benz in Mannheim, West Germany from 1969 until 1988. It was built as either a complete bus or a bus chassis and was the Mercedes-Benz adaptation ...

s were purchased. From the mid-1990s, Surfside began to standardise on

Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz (), commonly referred to simply as Mercedes and occasionally as Benz, is a German automotive brand that was founded in 1926. Mercedes-Benz AG (a subsidiary of the Mercedes-Benz Group, established in 2019) is based in Stuttgart, ...

and

Volvo The Volvo Group (; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distribution and sale of truck ...

chassis for its route bus fleet and Hinos for school buses. Initially bodied by external suppliers, since 1998 all buses have been bodied by the Calabro's Bustech. Since 2008 all purchases have been Bustech MDi and XDis integral buses. Surfside received a steady flow of second hand buses including from the Calabro's Sydney operations, Busabout and Hawkesbury Valley Buses. Since 2008, all deliveries and repaints have been in Translink colours, with blue body, green ends, a green and blue wavy stripe down each side and the Translink logo toward the back. A modified version is applied to the vehicles used in New South Wales to facilitate easy transfer between depots, albeit without the Translink decals. The Gold Coast Tourist Shuttle coaches are painted orange. Since 2013 Surfside Buslines have also received eight Bustech CDis double deck buses. As at Janury 2025, the fleet consisted of 453 buses and coaches.Kinetic Gold Coast & Tweed
Australian Bus Fleet Lists Vehicles are registered in both New South Wales and Queensland, although the fleet is utilised interchangeably, particularly the school bus fleet. The only restriction is the different ticket machines used in each state. Under Russell Penfold ownership, Surfside had an orange with blue stripe livery. The Calabros introduced a blue with yellow livery. In 2022, 10 new Volgren Optimus buses were acquired by Surfside Bus lines, out of 20 to be introduced in

the same year. They use BYD D9RA chassis, and use

battery electric bus A battery electric bus is an electric bus that is driven by an electric motor and obtains energy from on-board batteries. Many trolleybuses use batteries as an auxiliary or emergency power source. Battery electric buses offer the potential for z ...

technology.

References

External links

Showbus gallery
{{Translink (Queensland) bus network Bus companies of New South Wales Bus companies of Queensland Companies based on the Gold Coast, Queensland Kinetic Group companies Public transport on the Gold Coast, Queensland Transport companies established in 1967 Translink (Queensland) 1967 establishments in Australia