About Perth's Cat Buses

The buses are called Cat Buses (Central Area Transport) and offer a regular bus service within the city free of charge. The Cat Buses are silver in color and run around the greater city area every five to ten minutes during weekdays from 6 o clock in the morning to 11:30 at night with reduced services at every fifteen to twenty five minutes on weekends. In certain areas in the city, you can find a pillar that gives you the stop times, the timetable and you can even call for the nearest bus to come pick you up. Buses operate on red, blue, yellow and orange (Fremantle) routes that correspond to different areas and run along the main roads in the city.

The Red CAT runs east to west in a loop from Queens Gardens to Outram Street, the Blue CAT travels the north to south loop from Barrack Street Jetty to Northbridge; the Yellow CAT runs the loop from the Entertainment Centre to East Perth. Perth has two main freeways that meet in the city and they join the northern and southern suburb. The one that runs south of the city is called the Kwinana freeway and the one that runs the north of the city is called the Mitchell freeway. There are two bus terminals within the city.

There is the Wellington Street Bus Station which services the northern suburbs and is around 200 miles from the train station. The other bus station is called the City Busport and is located at the bottom of Mill Street on Mounts Bay road next to the Esplanade that services the southern suburbs. Both these terminals have information about times and routes as well as friendly staff to answer your questions. The bus services in Perth ply their routes through all the major suburbs and train stations and the terminating point of some of these bus routes are at the large train stations where you may need to catch a train to the city center.

The West Australian Government has also introduced three new Daimler Chrysler hydrogen fuel cell buses which will be running on normal transport routes for a two year trial period. This is part of a global initiative introduced by the West Australian Government in September 2004 for the development of clean fuels and sustainable energy. This is an internationally recognized initiative into supporting clean fuels which received the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Outstanding Achievement Award for the year 2004.