National Bus Company (UK)


The National Bus Company was a nationalised bus company that operated in England and Wales between 1969 and 1988. NBC did not run buses itself, but was the owner of a number of regional subsidiary bus operating companies.

History

Background

Following the Labour Party victory at the 1966 General Election, Barbara Castle was appointed Minister for Transport. Castle immediately ordered a review of public transport, with a view to formulating a new transport policy.
Among the issues to be tackled were the ownership and operation of bus services, which were rapidly losing patronage and profitability due to increased prevalence of private motor cars. The state owned a considerable proportion of scheduled bus operators outside the major cities, having obtained the Tilling Group companies in 1948 as a byproduct of nationalising the railways. The Tilling Group was subsequently placed under the ownership of the nationalised Transport Holding Company. London Transport was also nationalised in 1948 and others voluntarily acquiesced, the last being Red & White in 1950. When the Labour Party suddenly lost power to the Conservatives in 1951, the nationalization programme remained unfinished.
Castle proposed forming regional transport authorities, which would take over the THC subsidiaries and municipal transport undertakings in their area, and would also have the power to acquire private bus operators. However, in November 1967 British Electric Traction unexpectedly offered to sell its bus operations to the government. BET, who had been the only major private bus operating group, received £35 million for its 25 provincial bus companies and 11,300 vehicles. The deal meant that the state or municipal bus operators now operated some 90% of scheduled bus services in England and Wales. Instead of forming the regional authorities, the government published a white paper proposing the merger of the THC and BET organisations into a single National Bus Company.
The recommendations of the White Paper formed part of the Transport Act 1968. The 1968 Act also reorganised the already nationalised bus operation in Scotland, where subsidiaries formed the Scottish Bus Group.

Formation

The National Bus Company was formed on 1 January 1969.
In 1970, the company was enlarged when it acquired the country area buses of London Transport, the bus operations of the county boroughs of Exeter and Luton, and the Gosport & Fareham Omnibus Company, trading under the name of Provincial.
Buses were operated by locally managed subsidiary companies, with their own fleetnames and liveries. In the early years of the company, there was some rationalisation, generally leading to the amalgamation of operators into larger units and the transfer of areas between them. One was the merging of Aldershot & District with Thames Valley on 1 January 1972. Another example was the transfer of the 'land-locked' Trowbridge operations from Western National to Bristol Omnibus in 1970.

Corporate identity

Following the appointment of Fred Wood as chairman in 1972, NBC introduced corporate images. Henceforth, its coaches were branded as National Travel and painted in unrelieved white, with the NBC logo and the 'NATIONAL' name in alternate red & blue letters. The services were rebranded as National Express soon afterwards. The addition of blue and white stripes appeared in 1978. National Travel was the country's first attempt at a uniformly marketable express network, which superseded Associated Motorways and the plethora of other services provided by individual NBC subsidiaries. The coaches were managed by a few areas and included travel agent booking offices based at major bus stations. A hub and spoke system operated with the main hub at Cheltenham.
Around the same time, the company launched a wide number of UK holiday services under the banner "National Holidays". This brand and its travel agent booking offices existed until the mid-1990s, when the coach holiday division closed.
The National Express overseas travel business was re-launched under the name Eurolines: this brand now operates services from the UK across Europe, booked through the main National Express website.
fleetname and "double-N" logo on leaf green livery
In the 1970s all local service buses adopted a uniform design, generally in either leaf green or poppy red, initially with white relief, and bearing the company fleetname in white with the new NBC "double-N" arrow logo. There were, however, exceptions: buses operating in the area of the Tyne & Wear Passenger Transport Executive became yellow in a similar fashion to the PTE's own fleet but to the NBC design; some buses operating within West Yorkshire were liveried in WYPTE verona green and cream; Jones and Midland General both liveried in blue until 1980, and the Northern General subsidiary, Sunderland District, also retained blue for a short period.

Area of operation

Although NBC operated throughout England and Wales, it was not a monopoly. Services were provided by London Transport in Greater London, the fleets of the municipal bus companies and passenger transport executives, and by independent operators in some rural areas and a few small towns.

Bus manufacture

The NBC inherited from the Transport Holding Company 75% shareholdings in chassis manufacturer Bristol Commercial Vehicles and body builder Eastern Coach Works. In 1969 NBC formed a joint venture with British Leyland, by means of which British Leyland became a 50% owner of the NBC's manufacturing companies. The joint venture designed and built a new single-deck bus, the Leyland National. The first was delivered in 1972, and it remained in production until 1986. The National was also available to other bus operators. In 1982 NBC sold its 50% interest in the joint venture to British Leyland.

Service reforms

In the late 1970s and early 1980s services were reviewed under a process known within instigator Midland Red as the Viable Network Project and subsequently more generally as the "Market Analysis Project". Each company carefully considered its existing and potential new demands, surveyed both on and off bus, and recast local networks to reflect the results, indicating to local authorities those services requiring subsidy. As part of the MAP local area identities were invariably introduced, with new fleetnames applied to buses, bus stops, timetables and publicity. The process culminated in the splitting of several larger NBC subsidiaries.

Deregulation and privatisation

From 1986, bus services in the UK were deregulated and progressively privatised, with the remaining larger companies forcibly broken up.
NBC was divided into 70 units, with the first sale being of National Holidays to Pleasurama in July 1986. The last sale was completed in April 1988.
The sales spawned a renewed interest in individual liveries and the "double-N" logo disappeared. However, it was kept by National Express when it was sold to their management and continued to be used until 2003, when the NBC logo finally disappeared in favour of a new logo, since replaced in 2007. Most local companies passed from state control to management buyouts. The independence of many however, was short lived, as they were acquired by the emerging large private bus groups, represented today by:

Original companies

The original bus-operating subsidiaries of the National Bus Company in 1969 and 1970 were:
‡Bristol Omnibus Company also operated city services in Bristol for Bristol Joint Services, a joint undertaking of the company and Bristol City Council. It also leased services from the county borough of Gloucester, buses in the city bearing a Gloucester fleetname and city coat of arms.
†Keighley-West Yorkshire Services, jointly owned by West Yorkshire and the Borough of Keighley, operated by this company. They also provided municipal bus services for the County Borough of York on behalf of the York-West Yorkshire Joint Committee.

Consolidation

NBC pursued a policy of merging subsidiaries to form larger regional companies. At the same time some of its operations and depots passed to passenger transport executives. On 1 January 1972, North Western was split up: part going to the SELNEC PTE, the remainder to Crosville and Trent. In 1973 the operations of Midland Red within the area of West Midlands PTE passed to the executive.
By 1978 the following bus-operating companies existed:
In 1981 Midland Red, weakened by losing its core area, was broken into six smaller operating companies. Most of the National Travel companies were closed down in the mid-1980s, with coaches mainly going to local bus companies. Wessex National was formed from part of National Travel South West, and Pilgrim Coaches from part of National Travel West.
In preparation for the introduction of deregulation in 1986, and for privatisation soon after, many of the companies were broken up into smaller units. In some cases the names of earlier companies – such as Wilts & Dorset or North Western – were revived, although often with quite different areas from their namesakes.
Original companyYear of splitCompanies formedPrivatisation
Alder Valley1986Alder Valley North – renamed The Beeline1987
Alder Valley1986Alder Valley South1987
Bristol1983Bristol 1987
Bristol1983Badgerline1986
Bristol1983Cheltenham & Gloucester1986
Crosville1986Crosville1988
Crosville1986Crosville Wales1987
CumberlandGained Ribble's North Cumbrian operations in 1986Cumberland1987
East Kentn/aEast Kent1987
East Midlandn/aEast Midland1988
East Yorkshiren/aEast Yorkshire1987
Eastern Counties1984Ambassador Coaches1987
Eastern Counties1984Cambus1986
Eastern Counties1984Eastern Counties1986
Eastern National1986Eastern National/Thamesway1986
Hants & Dorset1983Hampshire Bus1987
Hants & Dorset1983Shamrock & Rambler1987
Hants & Dorset1983Wilts & Dorset1987
Lincolnshiren/aLincolnshire1988
London Country1986London Country North East1988
London Country1986London Country North West1988
London Country1986London Country South East – renamed Kentish Bus1988
London Country1986London Country South West1988
Maidstone & District1986Hastings & District1987
Maidstone & District1986Maidstone & District1987
Midland Red1981Midland Red East renamed Midland Fox1987
Midland Red1981Midland Red Express – renamed Midland Red Coaches1986
Midland Red1981Midland Red North1988
Midland Red1981Midland Red South1987
Midland Red1981Midland Red West1986
National Travel Eastn/aNational Travel East1987
National Welshn/aNational Welsh1987
Northern Generaln/aNorthern General1987
Oxford1986Oxford Bus Company1987
Oxford1986South Midland1986
Pilgrim Coachesn/aPilgrim Coaches Limited1987
Potteriesn/aPMT Limited1986
ProvincialGained part of Hants & Dorset 1983Provincial Bus Company1987
Ribble1986 Transfer of North Cumbrian operationsCumberland1988
Ribble1986North Western1988
Ribble1986Ribble1988
South Walesn/aSWT1987
Southdown1986Brighton & Hove Bus & Coach Company1987
Southdown1986Southdown1987
Southern Vectisn/aSouthern Vectis1986
Trentn/aTrent Motor Traction1986
United1986Northumbria1987
United1986United1987
United Counties1986Luton & District1987
United Counties1986Milton Keynes City Bus1987
United Counties1986United Counties1987
Wessex Nationaln/aWessex National Limited1987
West Riding / Yorkshire Woollenn/aWest Riding1987
West Yorkshiren/aWest Yorkshire1987
Western National / Devon General1983Devon General1986
Western National / Devon General1983North Devon 1988
Western National / Devon General1983Southern National1988
Western National / Devon General1983Western National1987
Yorkshire Tractionn/aYorkshire Traction1987

Two additional non-bus-operating subsidiaries were also disposed of in 1988:
The Scarborough operations of United Automobile Services passed to East Yorkshire Motor Services in September 1986.