The New Zealand Railways Road Services was a branch of the New Zealand Railways Department and later the New Zealand Railways Corporation. It operated long-distance, tourist and suburban bus services and freight trucking and parcel services.
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The first bus operation by NZR began on 1 October 1907, between Culverden on the Waiau Branch and Waiau Ferry in Canterbury. By the 1920s NZR was noticing a considerable downturn in rail passenger traffic on many lines due to increasing ownership of private cars, and from 1923 it began to co-ordinate rail passenger services with private bus services. In November 1926 NZR purchased a private bus firm operating between Hastings and Napier in the Hawke's Bay region. NZR then acquired various other bus services in Dunedin and the Hutt Valley, and by 1928 was operating 56 buses. In 1931 Parliament passed the Transport Licensing Act, which regulated local bus services to ensure that services would not compete with NZR. This further increased acquisitions by NZR of small bus companies.
There was a certain amount of rivalry within NZR between NZRRS and the rail Traffic Branch and in many ways they competed with rather than complemented each other.[1] For example, many cities had bus terminals some distance from railway stations and many NZRRS routes ran parallel to and at similar times to trains.[1]
In 1985 the land operations of NZRC was restructured into market-based bi-modal (road and rail) business groups, rather than branches based on mode of transport,.[1] and as part of the new Passenger Business Group, NZRRS was split into three brands:
The freight trucking business was combined with rail freight into the Freight Business Group, branded Railfreight Systems.[1]
Road and rail services were separated in 1991 when the rail and ferry operations of New Zealand Railways Corporation were transferred to New Zealand Rail and the road transport operations were sold:[1]
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