Hunter school buses now fitted with life-saving seatbelts

The buses are located in Maitland, Port Stephens, Cessnock and Singleton, and of those buses 10 are brand new and 82 have had the seatbelts retrofitted.

The seatbelts were installed on buses that regularly travel on roads with speed limits of 80km/h or more.

Minister for Regional Transport and Roads and member for Maitland Jenny Aitchison said bus safety is a top priority.

"Children are some of our most vulnerable road users and when we're on roads with those buses which are at higher speeds we want to make sure that they are able to wear seatbelts," she said.

"Wearing a seatbelt doubles the chance of surviving a crash and reduces the risk of injury and I know having seatbelts on more buses in the Hunter will give a level of assurance to families that their children are going to and from school better protected."

The buses, which operate on dedicated school routes, are serviced by Rover Motors, CDC NSW and Port Stephens Coaches.

The $10 million program, which has now been completed, was an extension of the Rural and Regional Seatbelt Program.

The newly fitted out buses are in addition to the 2583 dedicated school buses in rural and regional NSW that have received seatbelts in recent years.

In total, the Rural and Regional Seatbelt Program has seen 6671 seatbelts installed on school buses state-wide.

Ms Aitchison said it's vital that parents stress the importance of wearing seatbelts to their children.

"There are on average 29 people a year who die in NSW who haven't been wearing a seatbelt," she said.

"This is such a simple message. We're here in Maitland, it's the home of seatbelts.

"Milton Morris, the longest serving Transport minister in the state of NSW and the local member here for 24 years introduced that legislation 50 years ago and for us to have 29 people a year dying, 10,000 who are caught by police not wearing seatbelts is a shame."

Meanwhile, the Bus Industry Taskforce, which will determine how to deliver more efficient and reliable bus services, submitted its final report to minister for Transport Jo Haylen on May 1.

Ms Aitchison said she will be briefed on the taskforce's findings later this week.

"We are obviously looking forward to it, we initiated that taskforce because we knew that the service level standards and the safety were not up to standard," she said.

"There hadn't been investment in public transport in our state for a very long time, particularly in our regional areas, so we are very warmly embracing that taskforce, we want it to succeed, and we want people across regional NSW and all of our city cousins to have better bus services."

The taskforce's report will direct the future of bus transport in NSW.