On Dec 12, Thursday, Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian released the 20-year plan for Sydney's bus stops. The plan involved categorising Sydney bus stops into three types of services - rapid, suburban and local.

Rapid

Under Ms Berejiklian's 20-year plan, buses categorised under "rapid" will stop in locations about 800 metres to one kilometre apart. This is going to be a longer "walking distance" from current stops.

Take Parramatta for example. Parramatta to the city centre via Ryde and Victoria Road will stop at 20 places. At present there are 47stops on the same corridor, but when "rapid" routes take effect, the Parramatta route to the city centre will have buses stop every ten minutes during weekdays.

Suburban

Buses under the "suburban" category will have buses stop at least every 10 minutes during busy hours and 15 minutes during down time.

For example, a bus from Maroubra Junction to the city presently stops at 17 places between Kingsford and Central Station. Under the 20-year-plan, suburban buses will only stop seven times. Up until the time that light rail to the eastern suburbs is running, probably by the end of a decade, these Maroubra buses will have to stop at Kingsford.

The 20-year plan will also propose new suburban routes between Miranda and Bankstown, Chatswood and Sydney Airport, Lane Cove and Eastgardens, Hurstville and the city centre via Earlwood and Newtown, Burwood and Chatswood via Drummoyne, Bankstown and Blacktown via Fairfield, Penrith and Mount Druitt, and Bondi Junction and Miranda via the airport.

Local

'Local'' buses will run less frequently and will have buses stopping every 400 metres.

The 20 year-plan aimed to eradicate congestion in Sydney.

"More than 220 million customer trips are made on buses every year and are often delayed because buses run along outdated routes and are caught in congested corridors like Victoria Road, Parramatta and through CBD. As patronage increases and major infrastructure projects, including CBD light rail and south-west and north-west rail links, come online, we need to rethink how the bus network operates," Ms Berejiklian said.

On contrary, Opposition Leader John Robertson said that the plan will only create longer lines of commuters because there will be fewer bus stops while deputy chief executive Trent Zimmerman said that there should also be buses designated to the Olympic Park.

"We are disappointed the plan does not include express bus services from Strathfield to cater for a growing workforce and we encourage the government to keep the door open on improving bus links to Olympic Park," he said.

The 20-year plan will also involve a 20 cent increase on single adult tickets up to a $2 increase for MyMulti weekly tckets. Opal fares will stay the same.