At Penrith, a suburb on Sydney’s rural fringe 50km (30 miles) west of the central business district, you can catch a train to the city every four to eight minutes during the morning peak, and roughly every 10 to 15 minutes during off-peak hours before midnight.

On an express service, it takes 52 minutes to Sydney’s Central station, comparable to the journey by car, without factoring in the morning traffic on a tolled motorway.

This might seem unremarkable to people living in and around European cities, but Sydney, with its population of more than 5 million, ranks highly among world cities in terms of the number of transit vehicles per person. Its 181 vehicles per 100,000 people is higher than in Hong Kong and well above London or Paris, while big US cities languish at the bottom of the global rankings.

Sharath Mahendran, a YouTuber who creates videos about Sydney’s transport and urban planning history, said the Penrith links exemplified how the city was a “world leader at suburban public transport” and could serve as a positive example for low-density, highly sprawled US cities. But others point to a more nuanced picture.

With transport projected to be Australia’s highest-emitting sector by 2030, the city has recognised the need to invest in public transport to reduce emissions and costs. In April, the New South Wales government announced it would save $130m through a seven-year deal for all the electricity in its network to come from renewable sources, although the vast majority (84%) of its 9,700 transit vehicle fleet is made up of diesel buses.

According to Mahendran, Sydney has a claim to being one of the best global cities at delivering suburban services that “can genuinely compete with cars for speed”, which may be partly down to the number of transit vehicles available.

“If a train line wants to run the train every 15 minutes, that means you need four trains an hour,” he said. “Depending on the length of the train line, that could mean you need 10 trains.”

In a city whose geography ranges from coastal to mountainous, this means a fleet of metro, heavy, and light rail carriages, buses and ferries, all of which provide reliable services throughout the day. There were 817.6m trips across Transport for NSW’s network in the last financial year.

Geoffrey Clifton, a transport expert at the University of Sydney, said Australian cities were “good at providing at least some public transport options for almost everybody”.

There are areas of Sydney inaccessible by rail, as a result of the loss of the city’s tram network in the mid-20th century – you still cannot catch a train to Bondi beach. But Clifton said “you can get a very good bus service”, although it is likely to be powered by diesel.

Nevertheless, private cars still dominate. Analysis by the Climate Council in 2024 found while 67.2% of Sydney residents had access to all-day public transport, 62% of commuters were driving to work, although this figure was lower than in other Australian cities.

The city is known less for its public transport than for a spiderweb of privately tolled motorways, all owned and operated by the Australian multinational Transurban, which has led to Sydney being described as the most tolled city in the world.

Experts have pointed towards an Australian love for US-style SUVs as a contributing factor to the rising death toll on roads nationwide, which has climbed every year since the pandemic, with NSW the highest of any state.

Daniel Bowen, a campaigner with the Public Transport Users Association and a transport blogger based in Melbourne, said Australians often did not have a choice as to whether to travel by car or public transport.

“If you’re in suburbia or regional Australia and you’re trying to make a journey, often you’ll find public transport is just not a viable option and you have no choice but to drive,” said Bowen.

While a popular bus route such as the 333 – from the Opera House and the ferry terminal at Circular Quay to Bondi beach – is well served, others are not. Recently, the state government had to recruit drivers from New Zealand to fill vacancies from a prolonged driver shortage in the city’s northern beaches, another area poorly served by train lines.

But Mahendran remains upbeat, particularly about Sydney’s trains, which he describes as more comfortable, clean and regular than public transport in the US cities he has visited.

“Public transport in a suburban city like Sydney doesn’t usually work,” he said. “But it’s a global leader at suburban public transport, because this is a city where everyone takes public transport seriously and expects good public transport, even out in the suburbs.”