Metropolitan Omnibus Transport Company

This is a historic listing of vehicles owned and operated by Metropolitan Omnibus Transport Company.

During the late 1920's there was an exponential growth in bus services throughout the Sydney of that time, since the late 1800's the government had been operating a large tramway network and during the 1920's, it had been noted that the private bus operators were starting to threaten the viability of the tram services and the capital invested in the tram network. It became government policy in the late 1920's to impose taxes on bus routes that directly competed against a tram route.
Overtime the focus turned from direct confrontation and the local councils expressed concern about potential loss of services that legislation was required
The Ministry of Transport Act (1932) established the Department of Road Transport (DRTT) and Tramways along with the Department of Railways. Early on the DRTT attempted to work with the private operators, however soon after it became clear that the department needed to have it's own fleet of vehicles and the department commenced using provisions in the Act to acquire private operators said to be operating in competition with tram operations.

The Metropolitan Omnibus Transport Company (MOTC) was one operator that in the mid 1920's commenced importing bus chassis on a large scale, the chassis produced by White Motor Company of Cleveland Ohio was favoured by MOTC and a number of the White 50B bus chassis were imported into Australia and bodies placed on them by local coach builders.
On 2nd March 1933, the Metropolitain Omnibus Transport Company was acquired by the Department of Road Transport and Tramways, one of the company's depot remains in use today by the State Transit Authority (successor to the DRTT) at Burwood


The listing from From City to Suburb...a fifty year journey G.Travers (1982) has been used in the formation of this list