Saudi Public Transport Company
The Saudi Public Transport Company is a public owned transport company, which operates urban buses in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Mecca; intercity buses; and international buses to the UAE, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain.
Buses are gender-segregated, women and children using a rear door on urban buses for women and children and front seats on intercity buses.
History
The enterprise was established on 4 February 1979, with the issuance of Royal Decree No. Sheikh Saleh Abdullah Kamel was behind the creation of SAPTCO. SAPTCO was created by signing contracts with American transportation companies to manage it, with the money being provided by the Saudi government, and Saleh Kamel acting as the middleman and collecting a percentage of the contracts as a fee. The American companies were DMJM and ATE Management & Services Company. The initial bus fare within cities was one Saudi riyal, by royal decree, but this has been overturned and the fare increased. On 4 November 2017, Kamel was arrested in Saudi Arabia in a "corruption crackdown" conducted by a new royal anti-corruption committee. It was the first purge organized by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Saleh Kamel died in 2020.