London Buses

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This article is on the organisation responsible for most local bus services in London. For a more general article, see Buses in London.

An Enviro 400 bus, a modern interpretation of the famous London red double-decker.

London Buses is the subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) that manages bus services within Greater London. Most services are provided by private sector bus operators, although this is not particularly obvious to passengers, as buses are required to carry similar red colour schemes and conform to the same fare scheme.

Contents

1 Overview
2 Scope
3 Fares
4 Operators
5 Legal status
6 Vehicles
7 See also
8 External links

Overview

Transport for London plans bus routes, specifies service levels and monitors service quality. The actual bus services are operated by a number of bus operating companies which work under contract to London Buses. Although most of the operating companies are private-sector organisations, one (East Thames Buses) is owned by Transport for London, and managed at arm's length so as to avoid conflicts of interest. Although this originally came about due to the default of a private sector operator, it seems now to be deliberate policy, possibly partly to act as an exemplar for other operators as to how TfL wishes bus services to be run.

Transport for London is also directly responsible for the management of bus stations and bus stops and other support services. It provides passenger information in the form of timetables and maps at bus stops, and produces leaflet maps which passengers can obtain at Travel Information Centres, libraries etc.

Scope

The local bus network in London is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Over 6,500 scheduled buses operate on over 700 different . Over the year this network carries over 1.5 billion passenger journeys.and over 23 million buses running every day

Fares

Buses in the London Buses network accept both Travelcards and Oyster cards, as well as offering single cash fares and bus-only passes. At the time of writing (January 2006), the bus adult single cash fare is £1.50 for any journey and with Oyster card pay as you go(formerly Pre Pay) £1.00 Monday to Friday between 0700 and 0930, at all other times including public holidays 80p. A one-day pass allowing unlimited journeys in the Greater London area for one day costs £3.50. A seven-day pass costs £13.50.

Within the West End of London and on routes throughout London operated by 'bendy' buses, passengers must pre-purchase tickets prior to boarding a bus. To this end, bus stops in the area and on those routes are equipped with ticket machines which sell single tickets and one-day passes. In other places, tickets may be purchased from the bus driver although it is planned to extend the cashless area.

Ticket Cost
Cash single £1.50
Oyster single
7.00-9.30am £1
Oyster single
All other times 80p
One day bus pass £3.50
Daily Oyster cap £3
7-day bus pass £13.50

Ticket	Cost
Cash single	£1.50
Oyster single 7.00-9.30am	£1
Oyster single All other times	80p
One day bus pass	£3.50
Daily Oyster cap	£3
7-day bus pass	£13.50

Operators

Legal status

The legal identity of London Buses is actually London Bus Services Limited (LBSL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Transport for London. East Thames Buses is the trading name of another wholly-owned subsidiary of TfL called, rather confusingly, London Buses Limited (LBL).

The previous incarnation of LBL was as a subsidiary of TfL's precursor organisation London Regional Transport (LRT - see London Transport), and it was the holding company for the ten bus operating divisions that were sold off in 1994/95. It would appear that the company then lay dormant, passed from LRT to TfL, and was resurrected as a place for East Thames Buses to live within TfL, allowing a chinese wall to separate it from LBSL.

Vehicles

Main category:

The various bus operators providing services under contract to London Buses operate a wide variety of vehicles, about the only immediately obvious common feature being their use of a largely red livery. However London Buses does in fact maintain a close control over both the age and specification of the vehicles. Particular examples of this include the use of separate exit doors, increasingly unusual on buses in the United Kingdom outside London, and, on double-deckers, the use of a straight staircase where most other UK operators specify a more compact curved staircase. Additionally, London Buses also specifies that vehicles operating in London use manually-wound linen roller destination blinds, whereas in most other parts of the country, electronic dot matrix or LED displays are the norm.

Because of London Buses' close control on the age of the fleet, it is very common for London buses to be cascaded by their owners to operations in other parts of the country after a few years' service.

External links

[The London Omnibus]
[London Buses website]
[Collection of Google Earth locations of London Bus Stations] (Requires [Google Earth software]) from the Google Earth Community forum.
[London Omnibus Traction Society]
[Greater London Bus Map]

Transport for London
Tube \| DLR \| Buses \| Trams \| Rail \| Coaches \| River \| Taxi \| Dial-a-Ride \| Streets \| Congestion charge

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