Hillsbus is an Australian bus company that operates services in the Hills District of Sydney. Founded in 2004 when

National Express National Express Group is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, Ireland (National Express operates Eurolines in conjunction ...

merged its Glenorie Bus Company and

Westbus Westbus was an Australian bus and coach operator that operated bus services in Western Sydney from 1955 until October 2013. Founded by the Bosnjak family, it later became a subsidiary of National Express and later ComfortDelGro Cabcharge (now ...

(Hills District operations only) subsidiaries, it is today part of

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 Cabcharge (49%), today it is a fully owned su ...

History

First use of the Hillsbus name

In 1996,

established a separate Hillsbus brand to run express services from the Hills District to the Sydney CBD and North Sydney, initially via the

Anzac Bridge The Anzac Bridge is an eight-lane cable-stayed bridge that carries the Western Distributor (A4) across Johnstons Bay between Pyrmont and Glebe Island (part of the suburb of Rozelle), on the western fringe of the central business district of ...

and from 1997 via the

M2 Hills Motorway The Hills Motorway (also known as the Hills M2 Motorway, M2 Motorway or simply M2) is a tollway in north-western Sydney, Australia, owned by toll road operator Transurban. It forms majority of Sydney's M2 route and part of the 110 km Sy ...

. However, the Hillsbus brand seemed to have disappeared by the 2000s as these services were classified as Westbus rather than Hillsbus in early versions of the Westbus website. These Westbus services, however, were still referred to by Westbus as "Hills City Express".

Current entity

On 11 February 2002, Hillsbus was revived as a joint venture between Westbus and

' newly acquired Glenorie Bus Company, and introduced a new bus route 642 under the Hillsbus brand. This service linked

Dural Dural is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia 36 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government areas of Hornsby Shire and The Hills Shire. Dural is part of the Hills District ...

and the

City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

via the M2 and was therefore known as a "M2 City" express service. On 8 July the same year, Hillsbus introduced three more M2 City routes 650, 652 and 654.Hillsbus Home Page August 2002
Retrieved 10 July 2014 According to the Hillsbus timetables, these Hillsbus services were operated by Glenorie, even though neither Westbus nor Glenorie buses were used. In December 2004, all Westbus routes operating out of Northmead and Seven Hills depots, as well as the rest of Glenorie Bus Company, were rebranded Hillsbus. At the same time, Hillsbus took over the operation of

Harris Park Transport Harris Park Transport

routes 620 - 630, following the latter ceasing operation. The services were transferred from Hillsbus to Sydney Buses on 28 January 2005. On 25 September 2005, after the purchase of Hillsbus by ComfortDelgro Cabcharge, routes 620, 625, 626, 627 and 630 were transferred back to Hillsbus. Despite the rebranding to Hillsbus, the new Hillsbus website was only launched in January 2006, about a year after the rebranding. The delay could be related to the debt of Westbus and was only resolved after the sale of Westbus and Hillsbus to CDC. After the launch of the new website, it still did not show any timetables of the former Glenorie-operated timetables until May/June 2006, and during this period, customers were asked to check the Glenorie website instead. When the Parramatta - Rouse Hill section of the

North-West T-way The North-West T-way is a continuous series of bus-only lanes and bus roadways between Parramatta, Blacktown and Rouse Hill in Western Sydney. Opened in stages between March and November 2007, the T-way was the second bus rapid transit route to ...

opened on 10 March 2007, routes 730 (renumbered T63) and 735 (renumbered 616, now 616X) were transferred from

Busways Busways is an Australian bus company operating services in Sydney, and in the Central Coast, Great Lakes, Mid North Coast regions of New South Wales and Adelaide. It is the largest privately owned bus operator in Australia. History The ...

to Hillsbus with route 718 transferred from Hillsbus to Busways. On 30 June 2014, the

Opal card Opal is a contactless fare collection system for public transport services in the greater Sydney area and most other urban areas of New South Wales, Australia. Operation of the Opal system is managed by the New South Wales Government's transpor ...

was rolled out on all of Hillsbus' NightRide and Region 4 routes (including school services). On 28 July 2019, after the

Sydney Metro Northwest Sydney Metro Northwest was a rapid transit project involving the construction of a rail line through the north-western suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The line included the conversion of the existing Epping to Chatswood Ra ...

opened in May, bus routes in the Hills District were reorganised, with some services rerouted to stop at various Sydney Metro stations. In November 2022, CDC was awarded the contract to retain Region 4. The Hillsbus brand will be replaced by the CDC NSW brand when the contract commences in April 2023.

Routes

Since 2005, Hillsbus' services have formed Sydney Bus Region 4. In August 2013, Hillsbus successfully tendered to operate the Region 4 services for another five years from August 2014. Hillsbus operates the following services: * 535 from Parramatta to Carlingford (rail replacement bus service) *Bus routes 600 to 665 in Sydney's north-western suburbs, including **600 (formerly Metrobus M60) from Hornsby to

Parramatta Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...

**610X (formerly Metrobus M61) from Castle Hill to Queen Victoria Building. **66x series along the

North West T-Way The North-West T-way is a continuous series of bus-only lanes and bus roadways between Parramatta, Blacktown and Rouse Hill in Western Sydney. Opened in stages between March and November 2007, the T-way was the second bus rapid transit route to ...

(formerly T6x series) **Express services along the

and

Lane Cove Tunnel The Lane Cove Tunnel is an A$1.1 billion, 3.6 km twin-tunnel tollway in Sydney, Australia, which connects the M2 Motorway at North Ryde with the Gore Hill Freeway at Artarmon. It is owned by toll road operator Transurban and forms par ...

Macquarie Park Macquarie Park () is a suburb in the Northern Sydney region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Macquarie Park is located 13 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Ryde. ...

, North Sydney and Queen Victoria Building *Bus routes 700 to 715 in Sydney's western suburbs (

Wentworthville Wentworthville is a suburb in Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Wentworthville is located 27 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the Greater Western Sydney region. Wentworthville is split ...

, Seven Hills,

Blacktown Blacktown is a suburb in the City of Blacktown, in Greater Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Blacktown is located west of the Sydney central business district. It is one of the most multicultural places within Great ...

)

Other railway replacement bus services

Hillsbus also operated other railway replacement bus services between 2018 and 2019. Hillbus operated

Station Link Buses account for close to six per cent of trips each day in the city of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, forming a key part of the city's public transport system. The network initially evolved from a privately operated system of feeder serv ...

services (SLx series) between September 2018 and May 2019, while the Epping to Chatswood rail link was closed for upgrading and conversion to

. It stopped at Epping, Chatswood,

, Eastwood, Macquarie University, Beecroft and

St Leonards St Leonards may refer to: Places Australia *St Leonards, New South Wales **St Leonards railway station *St Leonards, Tasmania, suburb of Launceston *St Leonards, Victoria Canada *St. Leonard's, Newfoundland and Labrador New Zealand * St L ...

stations. It was jointly operated with

Transdev NSW Transdev NSW is a bus operator in the northern, southern and western suburbs of Sydney, Australia, operating on behalf of Transport for NSW. It is a subsidiary of Transdev Australasia. It is a different subsidiary to Transdev John Holland, whi ...

. The service ceased when the Metro opened in May 2019. Thereafter, until November 2019, Hillsbus operated the North West Night Bus to supplement the

Metro North West Line Metro North West Line is a rapid transit rail line in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The first–and currently the only line on the Sydney Metro network, it commenced operation on 26 May 2019, running between and . The line will be ...

on Sunday to Wednesday nights. Like Station Link, it was jointly operated with Transdev NSW.

Fleet

Depots

As of July 2022, Hillsbus operates 601 buses across four depots:CDC Group
Australian Bus Fleetlists * Foundry Road (F) in Seven Hills - Head Office of Hillsbus - 204 buses *

(D) - 177 buses * Northmead (N) - 188 buses * Seven Hills (V) - another depot also in Seven Hills, smaller than Foundry Road depot - 32 buses Hillsbus also operated 62 buses at the Camellia depot designated for

between September 2018 and May 2019, but they have since been moved to other Hillsbus,

Hunter Valley Buses Hunter Valley Buses is an Australian bus operator who operates bus, coach and charter services in the Central Coast and Hunter regions of New South Wales. Previously known as Blue Ribbon, it was one of the first companies to be bought by Comfo ...

and Blue Mountains Transit depots after the cessation of Station Link.

Livery

Prior to 2010, Hillsbus adopted Westbus' new plain yellow livery. With the introduction of Metrobus routes, the Metrobus livery was applied to new buses dedicated to Metrobus operations. In 2010, the

Transport for NSW Transport for NSW, sometimes abbreviated to TfNSW, and pronounced as Transport for New South Wales, is an agency of the New South Wales Government established on 1 November 2011, and is the leading transport and roads agency in New South Wales, ...

white and blue livery began to be applied on new buses and repainted buses. Fleet dedicated for Station Link also carried the Transport for NSW livery but with "Station Link" labels and a pink body front. Most of the Station Link fleet have had the labels and pink front removed after the cessation of Station Link. File:Transport NSW liveried (mo 6055), operated by Hillsbus, Volgren 'CR228L' bodied Volvo B7RLE at Castle Hill Interchange.jpg, Volgren 'CR228L' bodied Volvo B7RLE at Castle Hill Interchange in current Transport for NSW livery File:HillsBus.JPG, Hillsbus

Custom Coaches Custom Bus (previously Custom Coaches) is an Australian bus body builder in St Marys, New South Wales. History Cycle Components Manufacturing Company In 1935 Stanley Hillsdon founded Cycle Components Manufacturing Company (CCMC) in Guildford, ...

bodied

Mercedes-Benz O405 The Mercedes-Benz O405 was a single-decker bus manufactured by Mercedes-Benz from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s as either an integral bus or a bus chassis and was the last VöV SL-II standard bus in production. It was the replacement for th ...

Mk II on Clarence Street, Sydney CBD painted in original Westbus cream & red livery in October 2007 File:Hillsbus (mo 9877) Volgren 'CR228L' bodied Scania K230UB at Castle Hill Interchange.jpg, Hillsbus

Volgren Volgren is an Australian bus and coach body manufacturer. History Volvo Buses, VolGrenda Corporation, gren was formed in 1977 by Melbourne bus operator Grenda Corporation in Dandenong, Victoria. Because Grenda held the Volvo Buses dealership i ...

bodied Scania K230UB at Castle Hill bus interchange in July 2013, in previous yellow livery File:Metrobus liveried (mo 9867), operated by Hillsbus, Volgren 'CR228L' bodied Scania K280UB 14-5m at Castle Hill Interchange.jpg, Discontinued Metrobus liveried Hillsbus

CR228L bodied Scania K280UB at Castle Hill bus interchange

References

External links

Hillsbus websiteBus Australia CDC Sydney gallery
{{List of public transport operators in Sydney Bus companies of New South Wales ComfortDelGro companies National Express companies Transport companies established in 2004 2004 establishments in Australia The Hills Shire