Within a month after the restoration of British rule, limited service on the route was resumed on 22 September 1945 between Vehicular Ferry Pier and Tai Hang via Happy Valley.

In February there were only three buses left due to lack of repair, and the route was divided into two separate services, Central Market – Tai Hang and Vehicular Ferry Pier – Happy Valley.

After the acquisition of CTB by Chow Tai Fook, NWFB's mother company, the rearrangement of bus services lead to a proposal of merger of the route with 5A, which ran between Happy Valley (Lower) and Felix Villas.

[3] It was later decided that the merger would take place as scheduled on 31 May 2004, and the merged route plying between Kennedy Town (Belcher Bay) and Happy Valley (Upper) would take on both the numbers of "1" and "5A" for the time being.

In view of this the two aforementioned district councils reached the consensus that only one number should be adopted for the merged route, and the decision should be made through a public opinion survey.

[4][5] West In the morning of 28 January 1984 a deadly accident involving a Guy Arab V on route 1 occurred at Wong Nai Chung Road in Happy Valley.

The bus crashed into pedestrians, who were mostly parents and grandparents queuing up on the pavement to obtain admission forms from St. Paul's Primary Catholic School, after the driver lost control of it.