Public (bus) transport in South Africa went through a number of sometimes difficult periodes due to the political and societal changes from the Apartheid period through the problems during the 1990's and the first decade of the new millennium to a process of stabilisation, investment and modernisation. All the major cities (Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, East London, Pietermaritzburg, Bloemfontein) had urban operators with European type services for whites and separate services for blacks, except for Cape Town where buses were not segragated. Smaller municipalities around Johannesburg (Germiston, Alberton, Roodepoort) also had their "white" municipal services with PUTCO transporting "black" people. These municipal services were reorganised in 2000, with the restructuring of the administrative regions. After Apartheid had been abolished a massive change took place, in several cities leading to the abolishment of formal bus services which were replaced by "taxi services" with minibuses, with deteriorating security and violence. The minor cities largely lost their bus services, but in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth the companies kept running. Interestingly the World Soccer Games in 2010 were a boost for investment in public transport and Johannesburg and Cape Town developed Latin American style Bus Rapid Transit systems that became quite successful. Other cities are following and Pretoria is currently building a system. Another investment was in a new standard-gauge electric railway between Johannesburg, Pretoria and O.R.Tambo Airport, catering for middle class commuters and airplane passengers, effectively segregating them from the overcrowded commuter trains to the (former black) townships (and for which the government has been criticized). Gautrain even provides modern parking facilities and connecting bus services in the Johannesburg and Pretoria area. An indication of the developments going on is the new bus service in George, which started in December 2014.

Municipal operators on the Reef. In "Buses Annual 1977" Stewart J.Brown published an article on municipal bus operators on the Reef. Due to the adminitrative changes around 2000 the separate companies dissappeared. There were ten municipalities operating buses: Johannesburg, Alberton, Germiston, Boksburg, Benoni, Brakpan, Springs, Nigel, Kempton Park, Roodepoort.

Long distance train services still exist but are less frequent than they used to be and South African Railways has been split up in different operating companies for commuter trains and long distance services. Long distance bus services are important and several long established operators such as Greyhound and Intercape still exist.

THESE PAGES WILL BE UPDATED WITH PICTURES TAKEN IN 1988, 1994, 1998 AND 2014. THE JOHANNESBURG PAGES HAVE BEEN EXTENSIVELY DEVELOPED, THE OTHERS WILL FOLLOW SOON