Buses in London


Buses have been used as a mode of public transport in London since 1829, when George Shillibeer started operating a horse-drawn omnibus service from Paddington to the City of London. In the decades since their introduction, the red London bus has become a symbol of the city. In 2019, buses accounted for 11 percent of trips taken in the city.
, London has 675 bus routes served by over 8,700 buses, almost all of which are operated by private companies under contract to London Buses, part of the publicly owned Transport for London. Over 2,000 buses in the fleet are battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell buses, the second largest zero emission bus fleet in Europe. In 2006, London became one of the first major cities in the world to have an accessible, low floor bus fleet.

History

Buses have been used on the streets of London since 1829, when George Shillibeer started operating his horse-drawn omnibus service from Paddington to the City. In 1850, Thomas Tilling started horse bus services, and in 1855 the London General Omnibus Company was founded to amalgamate and regulate the horse-drawn omnibus services then operating in London.
The LGOC began using motor omnibuses in 1902, and manufactured them itself from 1909. In 1904, Thomas Tilling started its first motor bus service. The last LGOC horse-drawn bus ran on 25 October 1911, although independent operators used them until 1914.
In 1909, Thomas Tilling and the LGOC entered into an agreement to pool their resources. The agreement restricted the expansion of Thomas Tilling in London, and allowed the LGOC to lead an amalgamation of most of London's bus services. However, also in 1909, Thomas Clarkson started the National Steam Car Company to run steam buses in London in competition with the LGOC. In 1919, the National company reached agreement with the LGOC to withdraw from bus operation in London, and steam bus services ceased later that year.
Initially, buses in London were regulated with very limited oversight, licensed by the Police in a similar manner as taxicabs are licensed today, anyone could provide a bus service according to their best commercial judgement. After the First World War, many demobilised soldiers had learned to operate and maintain heavy vehicles like buses and established bus companies. In 1922, the Chocolate Express ran its first services, and many other independent operators entered the market until by 1924, the market was saturated with small independent bus companies which depressed patronage from established railways and larger bus companies – the worst affected being the London County Council's tramways which ran at a deficit. Management's efforts to control costs lead to a strike across the whole network, which was shortly followed by the major bus companies and railways in London.
Some of the bus operators in London included;
  • London General Omnibus Company
  • Admiral Omnibus
  • Amersham & District Motor Bus & Haulage Co.Ltd
  • Ashley and Westwood Omnibuses
  • Birch Brothers
  • Capitol Buses
  • Chocolate Express
  • City Motor Omnibus Ltd.
  • Darenth Bus Service
  • East Surrey
  • Elite Omnibus Service of Watford
  • Henry Turner of Wandsworth
  • Imperial of Romford
  • London Public Omnibus Company
  • National Omnibus Company
  • Orange Omnibus Company Ltd.
  • Overground
  • Premier Omnibus Company
  • Prince Omnibus
  • The Reliable Omnibus & Motor Coaches
  • Renown
  • Royal Highlander
  • Sevenoaks Motor Services
  • St. Alban's & District
  • Thomas Tilling
  • United
  • Watford Omnibus
  • Westminster Omnibus Company
  • Woking & District

    London Passenger Transport Board to London Regional Transport

In 1912, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, which at that time owned most of the London Underground, bought the LGOC. In 1933, the LGOC, along with the rest of the UERL, became part of the new London Passenger Transport Board. The name London General was replaced by London Transport, which became synonymous with the red London bus.
Bus numbers were first used in 1906. When the independent firms started in 1922, they used General route numbers, along with alphabetical suffixes to denote branch routes, so, for instance, the 36A ran parallel to the 36 for most of its route. In 1924, under the London Traffic Act, the Metropolitan Police was authorised to allocate route numbers, which all buses had to carry.
Under the direction of the Chief Constable responsible for traffic, A. E. Bassom, the LGOC were allocated numbers 1-199; the independent bus companies 200-299; country routes north of the Thames, working into the Metropolitan Police area, 300-399; country routes south of the Thames, working into the Metropolitan Police area, 400-499; Thames Valley routes working into the Met area, 500-510. All short, early morning, weekend or other special duties were to be given a suffix from the alphabet. To make way for these suffixes, previous suffix routes, denoting a branch, had to be renumbered in the one hundreds, so therefore, 36A became 136. Soon there were not enough route numbers and the police had to allocate 511-599 to the independents and 600-699 to the LGOC.
This ultimately led to chaos, and in the London Passenger Transport Act 1933 the power to allocate route numbers was taken away from the police and handed once again to professional busmen. Suffixes were gradually abolished over the decades, the last such route in London being the 77A, which became the 87 in June 2006.
The LPTB, under Lord Ashfield, assumed responsibility for all bus services in the London Passenger Transport Area, an area with a radius of about 30 miles from Central London. This included the London General country buses, Green Line Coaches and the services of several Tilling Group and independent companies.
London buses continued to operate under the London Transport name from 1933 to 2000, although the political management of transport services changed several times. The LPTB oversaw transport from 1933 to 1947, when it was nationalised and became the London Transport Executive. The responsible authority for London Transport was then successively the London Transport Board, the Greater London Council and London Regional Transport. However, in 1969, a new law transferred the green country services, outside the area of the Greater London Council, to the recently formed National Bus Company. Trading under the name London Country, the green buses and Green Line Coaches became the responsibility of a new NBC subsidiary, London Country Bus Services, on 1 January 1970.
Despite a comprehensive replacement of the bus fleet in the early 1950s, bus ridership fell dramatically – from 4.5 billion in 1950, to 3.1 billion by 1962 – while private car ownership rapidly increased. A seven week strike from April to June 1958 led to £2m in lost revenue to London Transport and contributed to a 4,000 shortage in drivers and conductors at that time. In addition, a fall in London's population by over a million people exacerbated the fall in ridership.
A former network of express buses operated by London Transport in Central London was the Red Arrows. The routes, all numbered in the 500s, ran from main line stations to various locations in the West End and City. They were introduced in 1966 and expanded in 1968, but in the 1990s they were gradually phased out, with the last two routes withdrawn in 2023.
In 1974, Jill Viner became the first female bus driver for London Transport.
In 1979, the operation of London's buses under the GLC was divided among eight areas or districts:
DistrictAreaLogo
AbbeyWest centralCoronet
CardinalWest and SouthwestBust of Thomas Wolsey
ForestEast and Northeast Squirrel
LeasideNorth Swan
SelkentSoutheastHops
TowerEast centralWhite Tower
WandleSouth Water wheel
WatlingNorthwestBust of Roman soldier

The districts were later reorganised and reduced to six, and, following the Transport Act of 1985, were done away with in 1989 with privatisation imminent.

Privatisation

In the 1980s the government of Margaret Thatcher decided to privatise the bus operating industry in Great Britain. At the time, local bus transport was dominated by London Transport in London, and in other major cities by large municipally owned operators, as well as by the government-owned National Bus Company and Scottish Bus Group elsewhere. The Transport Act 1985 brought about bus deregulation throughout Great Britain which opened up local bus operation to private operators and required municipal companies to operate independently of local government on a commercial basis.
However, the Transport Act 1985 did not apply in London – instead, the London Regional Transport Act 1984 required that an arms-length subsidiary company of London Transport called London Buses to be set up. London Buses would specify details of routes, fares and services levels, and the running of bus services would be contracted to private companies on a tendered basis. From 1985, bus routes were gradually tendered out to private companies, with London Buses split into business units from 1989. These business units were sold off in the private sector in the mid 1990s. Controversially, private operators were allowed to run buses in colours other than the traditional red. Following a campaign by tourism groups, tender specifications since 1997 specify that buses in London be 80% red.
Despite proposals from the Government in the 1990s to deregulate bus routes in London, the bus tendering regime is still in place today, with individual bus routes put out to competitive tendering by private companies. In 2024, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan pledged to bring bus routes back into public ownership as contracts expire.