Nineteenth century: horse-drawn buses and horse-drawn trams

The biggest early bus company was the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC), which was the first to create co-ordinated timetables. For many years, though, there were no designated stops; passengers were simply able to hail the bus anywhere along the route. 

In 1861, George Train started London's first horse-drawn tram service, running routes in Bayswater, Victoria and Kennington. However, these only lasted a few months because the rails they used obstructed other road vehicles.

The main drawback of the horsedrawn trams and omnibuses was their running costs: in the 1890s horses cost about £35 to buy and, in one year, LGOC spent £20,000 on horseshoes. And that was before the costs of blacksmiths, vets and ostlers (who looked after the horses). The horses did have one useful by-product: the 1,000 tonnes of dung they produced each day were sent to market gardens.

The 1896 Locomotive Act, which restricted the speed of "horseless carriages" to two miles an hour, was repealed in 1898 and, in the same year, the first motor bus ran through London's streets. However, horses still provided most of the power for London's transport by 1900, 50,000 were still pulling buses, trams, carts and private carriages.

Twentieth century: motor-buses and electric trams

In 1908, the LGOC bought out its main rivals to the horse-drawn buses, designing purpose-built motorised buses for London, under the direction of Frank Searle, the company's chief engineer, working for it subsidiary, the Associated Equipment Company (AEC). Searle designed the X-type bus, a 34-seat double decker, which made its inaugural journey on August 12, 1909. The next, improved model the 1910 B-type was the world's first mass-produced bus and, by 1913, there were around 2,500 in service. The next model, the 1914 K-type, had space for 46 passengers, because its engine was next to the driver.

Early motor buses had open-top decks and both driver and passengers were exposed to the elements. During the 1920s, vehicles were given pneumatic (instead of solid) tyres, and covered tops were introduced in 1925.

The first quarter of the 20th century saw a rapid expansion in public transport, especially after the end of the first world war, with more tramlines and railway tracks being laid, and omnibus routes opening.

In July 1901, London United Tramways (LUT) began operating London's first electric-powered tram service, running between Shepherd's Bush, Hammersmith, Acton and Kew Bridge. The trams ran on rails set into the road, with power coming from wires suspended above the streets. By 1906, ten other cities had electric tram systems and by 1910 the London County Council had taken control of the city's horse tramways and electrified 120 routes. On August 4, 1914, the last horse bus service in London ran from Peckham Rye to Honor Oak Tavern.

By the 1920s, the number of passengers travelling by bus outnumbered those carried by tram. But commercial competition resulted in road chaos, as rival companies sought to gain the advantage.

The government introduced the London Traffic Act of 1924 and, in 1933, all the London bus companies merged to become the London Passenger Transport Board, otherwise known as London Transport.

By 1923, many tram routes were running at a loss, motor buses were attracting more passengers and the increase in car use during the late-1940s and 1950s sounded the trams death knell. London's last tram ran on July 5, 1952.

In 1954, the first Routemaster bus was built.

Trolleybuses

By the early-1950s, in the immediate pre-Routemaster era, trolleybuses provided a non-polluting, quiet and comfortable method of public transport. A cross between a tram and a bus, these red, double-decker vehicles were powered by electricity via poles attached to overhead wires and ran on pneumatic tyres, not rails.

The German engineer, Werner Von Siemens, had been the first to experiment with this type of bus, in 1882, using a trolley (or "contaktwagen") running on top of a pair of wires in a horizontal configuration. His brother William worked in England, where he had three factories.

Trolleybuses were first demonstrated at Hendon on September 25, 1909, and on June 20, 1911, the cities of Leeds and Bradford simultaneously launched Britain's first trolleybus services.

A Royal Commission set up in 1931 recommended that trolleybuses replace trams and on May 16, 1931, London United Tramways set up the first route, between Twickenham Junction and Teddington. By 1940, more than half of London's trams had been scrapped.

The main disadvantage of trolleybuses was that the buses' poles often came off the wires and it was down to the conductor to hook them up again. A combination of cheaper oil and the cost of maintaining the overhead wires made trolleybuses increasingly less viable. Their replacement by motor buses started in 1959, and London's last trolleybus ran from Wimbledon to Fulwell on May 9, 1962.