Privatisation of London bus services

Unlike those in the rest of the United Kingdom, the bus services in London, although still ultimately privatised, were not deregulated to the same extent.

[1] The implementation of the Transport Act 1985 that deregulated bus services in England, Scotland and Wales did not apply to London Buses.

[2] Initially, London Buses' fleet livery continued to be all-over red with a simple solid white roundel.

The first round of tendering took place in the summer of 1985, bringing the first private operator into the market, in the form of London Buslines on route 81.

[7] East Thames Buses was retained by the new Transport for London authority to tender for routes itself before being sold for £5 million (equivalent to £8,471,000 in 2023) in October 2009 to the Go-Ahead Group.

[9] The separate business units created were:[10] † Unlike the other units, Centrewest quickly branded its buses into separate groups, in the main removing the London Buses roundel in favour of various gold designs, with just the central services remaining in a slightly altered roundel based scheme.

During this time of separate business unit operation by London Buses, many new bus types were also being introduced, notably the Dennis Dart midibus as well as numerous minibuses.

Several of these new vehicles received specialist branding from normal unit liveries, such as Camden Link, Kingston Hoppa or Southall Shuttle.

[17][18] The implementation of the Transport Act 1985 that deregulated bus services in England, Scotland and Wales did not apply to London Buses.

Criticism of those against deregulation included the potential of traffic congestion caused by multiple operators competing on popular bus routes (especially in Central London), the potential that bus operators would not use the popular Travelcard scheme, as well as the loss of strategic transport planning from an overarching body like London Transport.

[2] In 2024, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan pledged to bring bus routes back into public ownership as contracts expire.

The only unit not to be sold off was London Forest, which was wound up in the autumn of 1991 following poor financial performance and industrial action; its operating area was subsequently taken up by East London and Leaside Buses, although 11 of its routes in the Walthamstow area passed to private operators Capital Citybus, Thamesway Buses and County Bus.