GM Buses was a major bus operator serving the ten metropolitan districts of Greater Manchester in North West England.

The Transport Act 1968 resulted in several bus companies run by local authorities around Greater Manchester merging to create a central organisation.

The management of service information and tendering, bus stations and stops would be run by the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE).

[7] The competing operators included Bee Line Buzz Company, which ran several services along major routes across the Greater Manchester area;[7][8] Wall's and Finglands Coachways, which introduced several services along the Wilmslow Road corridor;[9] and Bluebird Bus & Coach and Citibus Tours, which launched several routes in the North Manchester area.

[11][12] On 11 December 1993, GM Buses was split for sale as two separate companies,[3][13][14] as the Government felt that they had a monopoly of bus services in the Greater Manchester area and wanted to increase competition.

[19][20] In October 1993, the Merseybus depot in St Helens was rebranded Lancashire Travel;[21] a further series of new or duplicate services were introduced in the Wigan, Leigh, Bolton, Salford and North Manchester areas that Merseybus/MTL had been gradually increasing its profile in since the late 1980s.

Finally, around 1993/94, MTL purchased Bolton Coachways and used their fairly substantial minibus network to further strengthen their position in the town against GM Buses North.

GM Buses South was purchased by Stagecoach Holdings for £40.7 million on 25 February, despite criticism from the Labour Party and protests from pensioners outside the Free Trade Hall.

[39][40] The directors of UK North were sentenced to 15 months in prison following an inquiry into the company's business practices, including overworking and poorly training their 130 drivers, a majority of whom had a limited understanding of English.