The Outer Sydney Metropolitan Bus Service Contracts (OSMBSC) are contracts issued by the Government of New South Wales to bus operators in areas surrounding Sydney. These regions include the

Hunter Region The Hunter Region, also commonly known as the Hunter Valley, is a region of New South Wales, Australia, extending from approximately to north of Sydney. It contains the Hunter River and its tributaries with highland areas to the north and ...

, Central Coast,

Illawarra The Illawarra is a coastal region in the Australian state of New South Wales, nestled between the mountains and the sea. It is situated immediately south of Sydney and north of the South Coast region. It encompasses the two cities of Wollongo ...

and the Blue Mountains. In 2016-17, 21.6 million passenger journeys were made on Outer Metropolitan bus services.

History

The OSMBSC was initially made up of ten bus system contract regions, OSMBSC 1 to 10.Outer Metropolitan Bus System Contract Regions
, ''Transport for NSW'', Retrieved 8 July 2014 These regions were declared and appeared in the NSW Government Gazette on 1 August 2008. Unlike the

Sydney Metropolitan Bus Service Contracts The Sydney Metropolitan Bus Service Contracts are contracts issued by the Government of New South Wales to metropolitan bus operators in Sydney, Australia. Since 2005, the government has moved from individual contracts with operators to larger co ...

which are put out to open tender, the government has indicated it does not intend to go down this path with the OSMBSCs, but negotiate with the incumbent operators. Like the bus contracts in Sydney, a requirement of the OSMBSC contracts is that operators cease using their own liveries and adopt a standardised white and two blues livery as prescribed by

Transport for NSW Transport for NSW, sometimes abbreviated to TfNSW, and pronounced as Transport for New South Wales, is an List of New South Wales government agencies, agency of the Government of New South Wales, New South Wales Government established on 1 Novem ...

. This livery was first implemented from 2010. As of 2014, the transition to the standardised livery is ongoing. Originally, regions OSMBSC 6 and OSMBSC 9 each had two operators. In 2013-2014, each of the operators in OSMBSC 6 and OSMBSC 9 were offered separate individual contracts, resulting in the creation of two new regions OSMBSC 11 & 12 from OSMBSC 6 and OSMBSC 9 respectively. This gives a total of 12 regions, with each region having one operator. There was no change of operators or takeover of services between operators. However, Coastal Liner (now Hunter Valley Buses) continues to operate some trips on routes 78, 80, 91 and 98 in Busways region OSMBSC 6. All OSMBSC contracts were renewed between 1 July 2014 and 2 January 2015, including the Newcastle Buses & Ferries contract for region 5, which was renewed for three years from 1 July 2014. At the end of the three year renewal, region 5 was replaced by NISC 001, with

Keolis Downer Keolis Downer is a joint venture between Keolis, the largest private sector French transport group, and Downer Rail, an Australian railway engineering company, that operates bus and tram services in Australia. History In June 2009, the Victor ...

operating as

Newcastle Transport Newcastle Transport is a public transport operator in Newcastle, New South Wales. A subsidiary of Keolis Downer, it operates bus, ferry and light rail services under contract to Transport for NSW. History and operations In November 2015, ...

taking over bus and ferry services from Newcastle Buses & Ferries in July 2017. It was announced in July 2021 that OSMBSC regions 6 and 7 would be put up to tender. OSMBSC region 7 was put out to tender in September 2021.

Regions

The list of regions and its respective operators in the

or the eTendering NSW website. The information is accurate .

Hunter, Newcastle & Central Coast

OSMBSC 11 used to be part of OSMBSC 6, until it was created as a separate contract region. Its routes were formerly operated by

Coastal Liner Coastal Liner is an Australian bus company operating services on the New South Wales Central Coast. It is a subsidiary of ComfortDelGro Australia. History Established in 1986 after the acquisition of the Dooralong to Wyong bus run from local op ...

until it was acquired by

ComfortDelGro Australia ComfortDelGro Australia is a major Australian public transport company. Founded in October 2005 as ComfortDelGro Cabcharge, a joint venture between Singapore-based ComfortDelGro (51%) and Australian A2B Australia, Cabcharge (49%), today it is a ...

and its subsidiary Hunter Valley Buses on 1 August 2018. NISC 001 used to be OSMBSC 05 until July 2017, and was operated by Newcastle Buses & Ferries.

Blue Mountains

Blue Mountains Transit routes were formerly operated by the Blue Mountains Bus Company until taken over by ComfortDelGro Cabcharge (now

) and its subsidiary Blue Mountains Transit in December 2014.

Illawarra

Premier Charters' region 9 routes were operated by Green's Northern Coaches, until taken over by

Premier Transport Group Premier Transport Group is an Australian operator of bus and coach services in New South Wales and Queensland. Its origins can be traced back to December 1987 when John King purchased Nowra Coaches. It has since expanded through a number of acqu ...

in February 2015. OSMBSC 12 used to be part of OSMBSC 9, until it was created as a separate contract region.

Patronage

References

{{List of public transport infrastructure in Sydney , state=collapsed Bus transport in Sydney