Bus transport in the United Kingdom

The first omnibus service in the United Kingdom was started by John Greenwood between Pendleton and Manchester in 1824. Stagecoach services, sometimes over short distances, had existed for many years. Greenwood's innovation was to offer a service which did not require booking in advance, and which picked up and set down passengers en-route. Greenwood did not use the term omnibus, which was first used in France in 1826.

In 1829 George Shillibeer started the first omnibus service in London. Over the next few decades, horse bus services developed in London, Manchester and other cities. They became bigger, and double deck buses were introduced in the 1850s, with the upper deck accessed by a ladder, and with "knifeboard seating" where passengers faced outwards with their backs to each other in the centre of the "knifeboard".[6] The growth of suburban railways, and later horse trams (from 1860) and electric trams (from 1885) changed the patterns of horse bus services, but horse buses continued to flourish. Vehicle standards improved, with the ladder giving way to an unsheltered spiral staircase, and seating on the upper deck changing from the knifeboard to "garden-style" seating i.e. bench seats facing the front of the vehicle. By 1900 there were 3,676 horse buses in London.[7]

There were experiments with steam buses in the 1830s,[8] but the Locomotive Act 1861[9] virtually eliminated mechanically propelled road transport from Britain until the law was changed in 1896.[10]

Motor buses grew quickly, and soon eclipsed the horse buses. Early operators were the tramway companies, e.g. the British Electric Traction Company, and the railway companies. In London, the horse bus companies, the London General Omnibus Company, and Thomas Tilling introduced motor buses in 1902 and 1904, and the National Steam Car Company started steam bus services in 1909. By the time of the First World War, BET had begun to emerge as a national force.[11]

From 1897 various experimental motor buses were developed with petrol-engined vehicles, petrol-electrics and even electrobuses, until diesel emerged as the dominant power source. This was assisted by the end of the First World War, in which many mechanics and drivers were trained to work on diesel vehicles. Early motorbuses were very uncomfortable: although the pneumatic tyre had been invented in the 19th century, buses and other heavy vehicles still had solid-rubber tyres, as pneumatic tyres could not cope with the weight of buses at that time; however improvements continued to be made. Once tyres could withstand the weight of buses, travel by bus became much more comfortable, to the detriment of the trams of the time. With the advent of motor buses, many other improvements became standard, such as enclosing the upper deck in a saloon, and enclosing the spiral staircase, as motor buses could cope with the increased weight of these improvements.

Other than meeting vehicle safety standards; bus transport was unregulated. Anyone with the vehicles and trained staff could enter the market and provide a bus service, with no requirements for a fixed route, route number, or timetable although in practice, this information was provided in some form to attract patronage. Following the Great War, there was a significant increase in the number of motorbuses due to the Armed Forces' preference for diesel vehicles and man drivers and mechanics being demobilised. The first so-called "pirate bus" was the Chocolate Express which began in August 1922[12]. This market disruptor was followed by many other small companies entering the market which depressed revenues for bus companies, railways and tramways, leading to the so-called "pirate bus crisis" of 1924.[13]

In London, where competition was fiercest, the Tramways appeared to incur the biggest losses from the vastly increased competition, due to being slower, and as-comfortable as motorbuses at the time. The County Council required the Tramways to provide workmens' services with significantly lower fares (a burden not imposed on buses) in order to incentivise the working class to move out of the inner city to reduce overcrowding. The Tramways attempted to cut pay to remain viable in the absence of subsidy from the London County Council but the Transport and General Workers Union countered the pay cut with a claim for increased pay for all Tramway workers. This was not accepted and a strike was immediately called. The Tramway workforce were soon joined by workers from the larger bus companies, and three days later, the underground railways which left London with little to no public transport for the duration of the strike.

Double-decker bus slowly pushes its way through the huge crowds gathered in Whitehall to hear Churchill's Victory speech, 8 May 1945

The London Traffic Act 1924 was passed rapidly after the pirate bus crisis of that year. The Act enabled the Minister of Transport to declare any street in the City of London or Metropolitan Police district a restricted street, preventing any new services or entrants running buses in that area. The Act also required all routes to be numbered and registered with the Police Commissioner[14]. In addition to introducing route service standards, this Act was protectionist and it enabled the sector to consolidate into monopolies, as it gave certainty to investors that any bought-out competitors would not be immediately replaced by another. Independent bus companies managed to raise a petition with almost a million signatures in 1926 to repeal the Act but were unsuccessful.[15]

The Road Traffic Act 1930 introduced Road Service Licensing across Great Britain. These Licences introduce route standards (a timetable, route number and destination) and imposed a barrier to entry for new bus companies and services, which had deterred consolidation outside the London traffic area. In 1931, Tilling acquired control of the National. In England outside London and towns where municipalities ran their own buses, the industry was dominated by Tilling, BET and their joint company TBAT. In Scotland, Scottish Motor Traction came to be the dominant operator.

The London General Omnibus Company had achieved dominance in the County of London before the First World War, and its two major competitors, Tilling and National (in 1919 renamed National Omnibus and Transport Company) looked elsewhere for expansion. After the Road Traffic Act; BET, Tilling and National gradually acquired independent bus operators, ending the intense competition of the 1920s outside London. Tilling had shares in BET as well as competing with BET, and in 1928 the two companies formed Tilling & British Automobile Traction Co., which continued its acquisitions. At the end of the 1920s the railways mostly ceased direct bus operation, but acquired interests in many bus companies. The National transferred its operations to three companies jointly owned with the railways, Eastern National, Southern National and Western National.

In 1933, the London Passenger Transport Board was established for the surrounding area of up to 30 miles from London, where bus services were compulsorily transferred to the Board which was neither fully private nor publicly accountable.

In 1942, TBAT was wound up, and its companies transferred to Tilling.

Bus Patronage, Bus policy changes, and growth of car ownership in Great Britain 1950–2020

The post-war Labour government embarked on a programme of nationalisation of transport. Under the Transport Act 1947, the British Transport Commission acquired the bus services of Thomas Tilling, Scottish Motor Traction and the large independent Red & White. By the nationalisation of the railways, the BTC also acquired interests in many of BET's bus companies, but BET was not forced to sell its companies and they were not nationalised.

In 1962 the BTC's bus companies were transferred to the Transport Holding Company. Then in 1968 BET sold its UK bus companies to the Transport Holding Company. Almost all of the UK bus industry was by then owned by the government under the National Bus Company or by local governments.

Bus passenger numbers continued to decline in the 1960s. The Transport Act 1968 was an attempt to rationalise publicly owned bus services and provide a framework for the subsidy of uneconomic but socially necessary services. The Act:

• transferred the English and Welsh bus companies of the Transport Holding Company to the new National Bus Company
• transferred the country services of London Transport to the NBC.
• transferred the Scottish bus companies of the THC to the Scottish Transport Group
• transferred municipal bus operations in the 5 large metropolitan areas outside London to new Passenger Transport Executives, together with some operations of THC companies in those areas.
• granted powers to local governments to provide subsidies to cover NBC subsidiaries' operating defecits incurred when delivering the regulated networks.
• introduced the New Bus Grant which promoted driver-only buses.

The National Bus Company underwent a corporate restructure in 1972, consolidating the former companies into a more uniform design and brand, with intercity services coming under one brand - National Travel - which would eventually evolve into National Express.

An AEC Routemaster bus in London

Crewed buses, with a driver and a conductor (colloquially known as a clippie) were very common in the United Kingdom until the mid-1960s, when labour shortages made recruitment and retention of conductors and drivers more difficult. Conductors allowed faster boarding and handled collection of fares which varied by distance – the fare stages – which meant shorter journeys were cheaper covering only one fare stage, and longer journeys were more expensive as they covered more stages.

The Ministry of Transport incentivised bus companies to purchase driver-only buses with the New Bus Grant, which was only available for one-man-operation buses. Crewed buses began to decline during the 1970s: rear-door buses were gradually phased out at the end of their useful lives; they were mostly phased out by 1980.

Crewed buses enjoyed a brief reprieve in 1986 as London Transport disposed of its Routemaster buses. Many of these were bought by bus companies in the provinces to help them gain market share from competitors. Crewed buses were then phased out again as on-road competition died off to reduce costs. Many urban bus companies simplified their fare stages to speed up passenger loadings, and to make it easier to respond to competitors' price changes. Many urban bus companies also began implementing exact fare policies, both to reduce risk of theft or robbery, and to deter passengers from seeking change for bank notes on buses. Many rural or inter-urban bus services still provide change as they have maintained a higher number of fare stages, and passenger loading times are less significant.

Contrary to popular belief, the last crewed bus service in Great Britain was not a Routemaster bus in London, but the Tayway bus service operated by Stagecoach. These buses were conventional Driver-Only Operation buses, with a conductor on board to collect fares. This service lasted until 2020 when the conductor was removed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In 1980 the new Thatcher government began on a programme of deregulation and privatisation of bus services. This began when road service licensing - permission to operate a stage-carriage road passenger transport service - was abolished for long-distance or intercity bus and coach travel. The National Express network was privatised. The National Bus Company and Scottish Transport Group divided some of their larger subsidiaries into more saleable units. In 1986, under the Transport Act 1985, all bus services apart from those in London and Northern Ireland were deregulated. The NBC's and STG's subsidiaries were then sold, in most cases to their management or employees.

Some district councils had bus departments which remained entirely under local ownership and were directly run by elected officials - sometimes referred to as a municipal operator. The Transport Act 1985 required that these public service departments (analogous to other council functions such as schools and library departments) were reconstituted as limited companies, and were kept at arms'-length from councils. Elected officials have little or no say in directly running their respective bus companies with the exception of Newport Bus who have a minority of serving Councillors on their governing board.[16] Councils with municipal bus companies may set a strategy for the operator, but decision-making about fares, routes and frequencies are taken by the board members, rather than councillors.

Post-deregulation, the intended model had been for competition between private companies to increase services. Regulations prevented neighbouring state owned companies being sold to the same concern, to create a 'patch-work' distribution of the operating areas. Competition law prevented private companies acquiring more than a certain percentage of geographical market share.

There were few cases of long-term sustained on-street competition. As competition often occurs on frequency, resulting in a period of loss-making competition, where both operators operate a high frequency loss-making service, ending with one operator leaving the market.[17]

Privatised bus companies First Leeds and Harrogate Bus Company buses at Wetherby bus station.

Administrative or political disputes over bus service provision are rare in the UK, except for the longest subsidised bus routes crossing multiple local authority areas.

The Transport Act 1985 stripped local government powers to subsidise bus companies as had been established in 1968. Previously, local governments could provide a general grant to the operating company - an NBC subsidiary or their own municipal transport department to cover losses incurred for maintaining the network, or improving pay and conditions for the workforce. This had the effect of all the public sector operators' losses being transferred to the local authority with poor accountability mechanisms in place.

This power was replaced by empowering local councils to create contracts for individual routes, which were awarded following competitive bidding. This allowed all supported services to be evaluated in their own right by the local authority. This had the effect of splitting the market into two parts, one paid for mostly by the local government, and one which was paid for by passengers using the service, either through them paying directly through fares, or via operator reimbursement for concessionary travel.

The Fuel Duty Rebate was unaffected, as this was paid to all bus companies running registered bus routes according to their fuel consumption and was considered not sufficiently distortionary to the bus service market to require reform.

The Conservative government moved to abolish the Greater London Council in 1984, in response to Ken Livingston's leadership of the GLC which featured many disputes with Westminster, including the Fares Fair policy. The functions of London Transport were transferred to the Secretary of State for Transport through London Regional Transport. Bus services in London were transferred to a new company, London Buses in 1984, which was split into smaller companies in 1989 which were then privatised.

With the exception of South Yorkshire PTE, who also operated a low-fares policy before 1985, London transport's operating deficit was too large for London's transport to be privatised in the same way as other companies in Great Britain, due to continued use of conductors, routemaster buses, and its pre-war predecessor. Bus fares in London are paid to TfL directly, rather than to the operator as happens elsewhere in Great Britain. This allows bus fares to be lower than the cost of running services.

Bus journeys in England per head from 1990 to 2014[18]

Many municipal and former NBC companies struggled to adjust to on-road competition and were sold to their management, employees, or other operators, which were in turn bought by one of the now-dominant bus operator groups - sometimes referred to as 'private', or 'group' operators. PTEs were also required to split and sell their bus departments. The largest of the group operators - FirstGroup began as the Aberdeen municipal transport department - then renamed as Grampian Regional Transport - which was willingly sold by their local authority and grew by acquisition.

After an initial burst of new entrants into the bus market, causing bus wars many of these new companies went bust, were acquired by other operators, or otherwise exited the market. Companies began merging and growing in the 1980s and 1990s, some growing in the pursuit of listing on the stock exchange. Five major bus groups emerged - two (FirstGroup and Go-Ahead Group) were formed from NBC bus companies sold to their management, two (Stagecoach and Arriva) were independent companies which pursued aggressive acquisition policies, and National Express was the privatised coach operator which diversified into bus operation.

Recent trends have seen the disposal of relatively large companies where revenues do not meet shareholder expectations. The Stagecoach Group went so far as to dispose of its two large London operations, citing the inability to grow the business within the London regulated structure.[19] They later repurchased their London operations in 2010, after it entered administration.[20]

Some large overseas groups have also entered the UK bus market, such as Transit Systems, who purchased First's London operations, under the Tower Transit name,[21] and ComfortDelGro, who own Metroline, and recently purchased New Adventure Travel

In 2006, the Scottish Executive introduced the first national concessionary bus travel scheme for all persons aged 60 or over, replacing various local concessionary travel schemes. In England, a similar scheme was introduced at the national level, but has since raised the eligibility age to state pension age. Neither of these concessionary travel schemes made a noticable impact on bus patronage. The Scottish Government introduced another concessionary travel scheme for people aged 11–21 in 2022.[22] The young persons' scheme has appears to have been more successful at increasing patronage than the previous schemes.

Bus patronage decreased sharply following the lockdown in response to the covid pandemic. The UK government established the Covid Bus Service Support Grant (CBSSG) which was paid to local governments outside Greater London to maintain bus services through the pandemic.[23] Greater London had a separate programme of support for its services, with frequent disputes between the UK government and Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London at the time.

Scotland provided funding direct to bus operators through its equivalent scheme, Covid Support Grant.[24] The Welsh Government supported its bus services through its Bus Emergency Scheme[25]

Between January 2022 and January 2023, registered bus routes fell by 9.5%.[26]

As was the case in many other countries, many bus drivers contracted coronavirus with higher death rates than the general population.[27]

Following lifting of restrictions, many bus services struggled to restore previous levels of service due to the loss of bus drivers to the haulage sector who offer better pay, retirement, ill-health, or premature death. Travel patterns have been altered, with the decline in city-centre working in many areas,[28] which significantly impacts on bus companies' income. Governments have intervened to support bus services in a variety of ways, including a £2 cap on single fares in England which was launched on 1 January 2023.[29]

The UK Government and devolved administrations have worked to transition buses away from diesel to hydrogen fuel cell or battery-electric powertrains. The Zero Emission Bus Regional Area scheme provided funding to local governments in England to work with bus companies to deliver zero emission buses and supporting infrastructure in their area.[30] The Scottish Ultra Low Emission Bus Schemes provided funding to bus companies directly to acquire battery electric buses and supporting infrastructure.[31] London [32] and Northern Ireland[33] have acquired zero emission buses directly due to these markets being regulated in their respective areas.

Hydrogen buses were introduced as a trial in 2015 in Aberdeen,[34] and ran until 2020.[35] The following year, the world's first hydrogen powered double-deckers began service in the city.[35] Later in 2021, Transport for London introduced 20 hydrogen double-deckers.[36][37]

Many local government have installed bus priority measures as a way of promoting bus travel in their areas, such as bus lanes, however enforcement of bus lanes varies significantly. Some local authorities also install bus gates or bus priority signals to improve service reliability and councils are gradually replacing bus bays with bus bulbs to reduce delays for buses needing to pull into the stream of traffic.

A park and ride bus - an ADL Enviro 200 - in Southport, operated by Arriva North West & Wales in a dedicated scheme livery

Buses play an integral role in park and ride schemes in the UK, with operations across the country, having been implemented in volume since the 1980s and 1990s. Schemes now range in size from small standard liveried buses, to large dedicated route branded fleets. The majority are permanent, government-supported public transport schemes, although operating contracts must be competitively tendered. Some schemes branded park and ride are for private use, such as airport buses. Others cater for specific events or segments of passengers, such as National Health Service staff.

The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway - Wright Pulsar 2

Following the failure of some light rail proposals in some UK towns to gain national funding on the Department of Transport's value for money assessment, several towns have turned to enhanced bus services as a cheaper alternative. Following limited historical use, such as in Runcorn and Birmingham, the use of guided bus technology and bus rapid transit schemes has increased in the UK. Among these are the longest guided busway in the world, the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway which opened in 2011, and the Luton to Dunstable Busway, the second-longest guided busway, which opened in 2013.

Other busways in operation include Ipswich Rapid Transit, Crawley Fastway, South East Hampshire Bus Rapid Transit, Leigh-Salford-Manchester Bus Rapid Transit, and Bus Rapid Transit North, using a variety of technologies.