The predecessor of the Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate is the Territory and Municipal Services Directorate, previously the Department of Territory and Municipal Services. TAMS was formed on 1 July 2006 from the merger of the Department of Urban Services, Environment ACT, Australian Capital Tourism, Sport and Recreation ACT, ACTION, Canberra Stadiums and parts of the Office of Sustainability into a single department. In October 2015, the ACT government announced that they were planning to form a form a standalone public transport directorate known as Transport Canberra, merged from ACTION buses and Capital Metro Agency, the agency in charge of planning the Canberra light rail project. The plan was modified and announced in April 2016 and the new changes took effect on 1 July 2016:
the Territory and Municipal Services Directorate was renamed the Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate
the Active Travel Office was transferred from EPSDD to new TCCS
the Capital Metro Agency ceased as a separate reporting entity and its functions were amalgamated with the TCCS
The administrative changes brought together the CMA, ACTION buses and the existing municipal services functions of TAMS into one directorate. Transport Canberra was still created to manage public transport in Canberra, but as a division under the new TCCS directorate. In December 2016, TCCS was given the responsibility of waste policy, transferred from the EPSDD.
Structure
, TCCS operated under four areas of responsibilities, which are:
Transport Canberra Division
City Services Division
Chief Operating Officer Group
Finance, Legal and Sustainability Group.
The directorate is responsible to Chris Steel MLA, Minister for City Services, Recycling and Waste Reduction, Roads and Active Travel, and Transport. , the Director-General of TCCS is Alison Playford, who has held this position since May 2019. Emma Thomas was the inaugural and previous director-general until her retirement from the ACT public service in April 2019.
Transport Canberra
Transport Canberra is the transport agency equivalent in the ACT, in charge of managing Canberra's public transport network, including ACTION buses and Canberra Light Rail, as well as active travel. It was formed from combining the public transport division of the TAMS with Capital Metro Agency, the agency in charge of the light rail project. It also replaced the previous roads and public transport agency, Transport for Canberra. Originally planned to be a standalone government directorate, it was later changed to be a division of the newly created TCCS.