For half a century, operation of London bus services for public transport was under the direct control of a number of entities known as London Transport. The London Regional Transport Act 1984 resulted in London Regional Transport taking control of London's bus routes, with the operation divested in stand alone companies that were privatised in 1994/95.
Since then, direct provision of bus services in London has been run by private companies, although Transport for London did operate its own company, East Thames Buses between 1999 and 2009.
Unlike those in the rest of the United Kingdom, the bus services in London, although still ultimately privatised, were not deregulated to the same extent. In London, details of routes, fares and services levels were still specified by public bodies, with the right to run the services contracted to private companies on a tendered basis.
The privatised period produced for the first time buses in London painted in different schemes from the traditional red. This ceased following a 1997 edict that London buses be 80% red.
On 29 June 1984, in the general move towards deregulation, responsibility for running London bus services transferred from the last public body running London's buses, the Greater London Council to London Regional Transport under the London Regional Transport Act 1984. This Act required arm's-length subsidiaries to be established to oversee the operation of bus services. In March 1985, London Buses Limited was incorporated as an LRT subsidiary amid a wider split of LRT's operations.[1]
The implementation of the Transport Act 1985 that deregulated bus services in England, Scotland and Wales did not apply to London Buses.[2]
Initially, London Buses' fleet livery continued to be all-over red with a simple solid white roundel. In 1987, however, this was revised with the addition of a grey skirt and a white mid-level relief line;[3] in the same year a modified red and yellow roundel designed by consultants Wolff Olins, featuring the name 'London Buses' in capitals through the centre of the roundel, was introduced.[4]
Under the 1984 Act, London bus services were to be tendered. The first round of tendering took place in the summer of 1985, bringing the first private operator into the market, in the form of London Buslines on route 81. By 1988 Boro'line Maidstone, Grey-Green and Metrobus were also operating numerous London routes.[5]
Controversially, these operators were allowed to operate buses in liveries other than standard red, meaning that for the first time, it was possible for non-red buses to run into the centre of London, such as those on high-profile route 24 operated by Grey-Green. The only requirement was to display the London Transport roundel on the bus, to designate a London Transport tendered service. Ironically, several of the new private entrants were descendants of London Transport's former 'green' buses division, which operated outer London services that were passed to the National Bus Company's control as London Country Bus Services, in 1969.
The private competition was not without controversy, with objections to non-red buses leading to an edict in 1997 specifying 80% red liveries. The tendering also caused problems with several operators needing to hire buses due to late delivery of new buses for newly won routes.
One such controversial route was the arrangements for tendering route 60 which was initially awarded to Capital Logistics. Difficulties in setting up the route eventually saw operation by eight different operators and 10 different bus types in a short space of time, before the route finally gained a stable arrangement.[6]
The collapse of Harris Bus in December 1999 led to London Transport forming East Thames Buses as an arm's-length company to provide temporary operation of the collapsed operator's routes.[7] East Thames Buses was retained by the new Transport for London authority to tender for routes itself before being sold for £5million (equivalent to £8,471,000in 2023) in October 2009 to the Go-Ahead Group.[8]
On 1 April 1989, London Buses was divided into 12 business units in preparation for being individually sold off. The companies were created along geographic lines, with all but Westlink having routes running into Central London. The division names and a small graphic device were added to the buses, in white. An exception to this was the Westlink unit, which received a new livery altogether. Some of the names chosen were drawn from the pre London Transport era, namely London General Omnibus Company and London United Tramways.[9]
† Unlike the other units, Centrewest quickly branded its buses into separate groups, in the main removing the London Buses roundel in favour of various gold designs, with just the central services remaining in a slightly altered roundel based scheme. The group brands were: Challenger, Ealing Buses, Gold Arrow, Uxbridge Buses, Hillingdon local service and Orpington Buses.
During this time of separate business unit operation by London Buses, many new bus types were also being introduced, notably the Dennis Dart midibus as well as numerous minibuses. Several of these new vehicles received specialist branding from normal unit liveries, such as Camden Link, Kingston Hoppa or Southall Shuttle.
In the new era of private tendering, in an effort to compete with the new private operators entering the market, London Buses set up some low cost units to compete for tenders, painted in non-red liveries. The most notable were Harrow Buses and Bexleybus, tendering for routes in the Harrow and Bexleyheath areas respectively.[14]
These units were not overly successful, due to unreliable service, and industrial disputes due to lower pay rates than for the main London units.[15][16] Their routes were quickly surrendered to other units or private operators.[17][18]
Proposed deregulation of routes
The implementation of the Transport Act 1985 that deregulated bus services in England, Scotland and Wales did not apply to London Buses.[2] Despite this, the Government desired to deregulate bus routes in London, to allow for full competition on individual bus routes;[19] the Conservative Party manifesto at the 1992 general election proposed "Deregulating buses in London and privatising the London Buses subsidiaries".[20]
In March 1991, the Government published "A Bus Strategy for London", outlining its proposals for deregulation of bus routes in London. A "London Bus Executive" was proposed, providing socially essential but uneconomic bus routes, as well as bus stops, shelters and stations. This would be separate from London Regional Transport, as it was felt that an independent body would not be "distracted by the major challenges which London Transport faces".[21]
The Government claimed that deregulation would lead to more and varied bus services, leading to increased bus ridership, less congestion and better choice of services for passengers. Criticism of those against deregulation included the potential of traffic congestion caused by multiple operators competing on popular bus routes (especially in Central London), the potential that bus operators would not use the popular Travelcard scheme, as well as the loss of strategic transport planning from an overarching body like London Transport.[21] In July 1991, Minister of State for Public TransportRoger Freeman stated in the House of Commons that 60% of respondents to the consultation were against the proposal.[22]
In November 1993, the Government deferred the proposed deregulation of buses in London, noting that the sell-off of London Buses business units would continue.[23] It remained an aspiration of the Conservative Government to deregulate London bus services in future.[24] Following the election of Tony Blair and the Labour Party following the 1997 general election, deregulation of London bus services was no longer pursued.[2] Bus routes therefore continued to be tendered by London Transport and post 2000, its successor, Transport for London.[2]
In 2024, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan pledged to bring bus routes back into public ownership as contracts expire.[25]
Business unit sell-off
Between September 1994 and January 1995, the separate London Buses business units were sold off. Competition rules restricted the number of units that could be bought by one group. All the units were sold either via a management buyout or employee buyout, or to one of the emerging national bus groups that had been growing through acquisition of deregulated companies in the rest of the UK. The exception was London Northern, which was bought by MTL, itself an expanding company formed from the privatisation of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive bus company.
Following sell-off, the new operators introduced new liveries, logos and trading names to many of the business units. Initially some buses appeared in liveries other than red, but an edict that all buses be 80% red saw this reversed from 1997. Some companies having been renamed, have since resumed their original identities.
The only unit not to be sold off was London Forest, which was wound up in the autumn of 1991 following poor financial performance and industrial action; its operating area was subsequently taken up by East London and Leaside Buses, although 11 of its routes in the Walthamstow area passed to private operators Capital Citybus, Thamesway Buses and County Bus.[26]
In the period before the sell off of the main business units, London saw operation by several private companies who gained tenders for routes. Many of these either ceased trading, or were ultimately purchased by large groups, some of which also bought some of the ex-London Buses units. Below is a list of private operators, some of which still operate.
Borehamwood Travel Services acquired by Blazefield Group in 1994 and renamed London Sovereign, later rebranded as Transdev London, sold to RATP Group in March 2014 and resumed London Sovereign identity
Stagecoach in Hull is a bus operator providing services in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is a subsidiary of Stagecoach East Midlands, a subdivision of the Stagecoach Group.
Arriva London is a major bus company operating services in Greater London. It is a subsidiary of Arriva UK Bus and operates services under contract to Transport for London. It was formed in 1998 from a fusion of previously separate Arriva subsidiaries Grey-Green, Leaside Buses, Kentish Bus, London & Country and South London Transport. Operations are split between two registered companies, Arriva London North Limited and Arriva London South Limited.
Metroline is a bus company operating bus services in Greater London and Hertfordshire. It is a subsidiary of ComfortDelGro. It also operates bus services under contract to Transport for London.
The VDL DB250 was a twin-axle double-decker bus chassis manufactured by VDL Bus & Coach.
MTL Trust Holdings was an English bus, coach and train operator based in Liverpool, Merseyside. MTL was originally part of the MPTE. To comply with the Transport Act 1985, the bus operations were divested into a new independent company, Merseyside Transport Limited (MTL). Merseyside PTA retained shareholding, but the company was purchased by its management and staff in a £5.9 million Employee Share Ownership Plan in 1993. On 17 February 2000, MTL was purchased by Arriva for £85 million, with MTL's shareholding workers each receiving £13,500 in windfall gains from the sale.
The Optare Spectra was a double-decker bus body built on both the step entrance DAF DB250 and low-floor DB250LF chassis between 1991 and 2006.
London Regional Transport (LRT) was the organisation responsible for most of the public transport network in London, England, between 1984 and 2000. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and operational brand of the organisation was London Transport from 1989, but until then it traded as LRT. This policy was reversed after the appointment of Sir Wilfrid Newton in 1989, who also abolished the recently devised LRT logo and restored the traditional roundel.
London Country South West (LCSW) was a bus operator in South East England and London. It was formed from the split of London Country Bus Services in 1986 and operated a fleet of around 415 buses from 10 garages, with its headquarters in Reigate.
South Yorkshire Transport (SYT) was a bus operator that provided services around South Yorkshire and outlying areas. The company was formed as an 'arms-length' successor of the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (SYPTE) in 1986, which was broken up as a result of the deregulation of bus services. South Yorkshire Transport operated buses in and around Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield with some services extending to Chesterfield, Leeds and Barnsley.
The Northern Counties Palatine was a step-entrance 2-axle and 3-axle double-decker bus body built by Northern Counties from 1988 to 1999 in Wigan, England.
GM Buses was a major bus operator serving the ten metropolitan districts of Greater Manchester in North West England. The company was formed in February 1986 by the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive prior to deregulation on 26 October. In December 1993, it was split into GM Buses North and GM Buses South in order to increase competition for services in the area, before they were sold to the FirstGroup and Stagecoach respectively.
Capital Citybus was a bus operator in London operating services under contract to London Regional Transport.
Ensign Bus Company Limited, trading as Ensignbus, is a bus and coach operator and bus dealer based in Purfleet, Essex. As of March 2023, it is a part of FirstGroup.
The Passenger Transport Executive (PTE) bus operations were the bus operating divisions of the passenger transport executives in the United Kingdom. In 1986 they underwent a process of deregulation and privatisation, forming some of the largest private bus companies in the UK outside London, with all being sold to their employees or management. Despite their relative size and lucrative operating areas, none of the companies survived beyond the late 1990s, with all falling into the hands of the major bus groups, who had their origins in privatised regional subsidiaries of the former National Bus Company and the Scottish Bus Group.
Articulated buses, colloquially known as "bendy buses", were rarely used in the United Kingdom compared to other countries, until the turn of the millennium. This was due to a preference for the double-decker bus for use on high capacity routes. In June 2006, there were over 500 articulated buses in the United Kingdom, although they were still heavily outnumbered by double deckers. The majority of this fleet was used in London, although these buses would be withdrawn by end of 2011.
Grey-Green was a bus and coach operator in England. It was based in Stamford Hill and operated in London and the East of England.
United Counties Omnibus was an English bus company, operating in Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and parts of surrounding counties.
London Country North East was a bus operator in South East England and London. It was formed from the split of London Country Bus Services in 1986 and operated a fleet of around 350 buses from six garages, with its headquarters located in Hatfield.
Buses in Milton Keynes are run by a mixture of operators on a network of urban and rural routes in and around the Milton Keynes urban area. These services have a varied history involving five different companies. At the foundation of the 'New City' in 1967 and for some years afterwards, Milton Keynes was served by a rural bus service between and to the pre-existing towns. Apart from a small-scale experimental service, urban buses arrived on the scene with deregulation in 1986. Since April 2010 the core local services have been provided by Arriva Shires & Essex. Long-distance coach services also serve MK, often via the Milton Keynes Coachway located near junction 14 of the M1 motorway.
Merseybus was a bus operator running bus and coach services predominantly in and around Merseyside, England. Based at Edge Lane, Liverpool, Merseybus was formed as an "arm's length" operation of the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive out of its bus operations following bus deregulation in Great Britain, and would be sold to Merseybus management and staff in a £5.9 million Employee Share Ownership Plan in 1993, forming the core of MTL's bus operations. Merseybus would later be sold along with all MTL operations to Arriva on 17 February 2000, and operations today trade under Arriva North West.
↑ Rifkind, Malcolm (22 July 1991). ""A Bus Strategy for London" (Hansard, 22 July 1991)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 10 August 2021. The Government's policy remains, as it has been since the Transport Act 1985 was introduced into Parliament, that the London bus market should be deregulated and privatised as soon as possible.
↑ Freeman, Roger (25 July 1991). ""A Bus Strategy for London" (Hansard, 25 July 1991)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 10 August 2021. Approximately 60 per cent. of respondents, including the hon. Lady, commented unfavourably on the Government's plans to deregulate bus services in London.
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