Buses have been an established part of passenger transport far longer than train services. Rural carriers who switched from horses to motors after 1919 had been carrying people as well as goods to the market towns from at least the 12th century, while the hackney carriage, which appeared about 1625, was one of the predecessors of the omnibus, the other being the stagecoah, whose services developed from around 1650 to provide a national network. The first mail coach service began in 1784, between London, Bath and Bristol, a route which was to be taken over by the first true express motor coach service in 1925.

But whereas the stagecoaches fell back before the advancing railways, having failed to compete successfully with the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, they retained their importance as “short-stage” coaches in many places, often acting as feeders to the railways, and eventually metamorphosing into horse-buses in towns and horse-drawn omnibuses or coaches in rural areas. Even so, the stage coach between Wendover and London was withdrawn only in 1892, when the Metropolitan Railway reached the town. Neighbouring towns where the rail journey was roundabout, such as Sudbury and Halstead on the Essex-Suffolk border, continued to be linked by “long-coaches”, or omnibuses, until motors were available.

In serving and encouraging the growth of towns and cities in the 19th century, the horse bus often played a more important part than the railway. Shillibeer’s service between Paddington and the Bank in London started in 1829, copying developments in France, where the name “omnibus” had been coined. In less than a year there were 39 omnibuses running in London, and within a decade the bus had become the accepted form of transport in Birmingham, Manchester and most of the larger towns, a function it retained, since the railway services within cities tended to provide chiefly for commuters. After the Great Exhibition had attracted many new firms to the London trade, over supply led to combination, and from 1856 the London General Omnibus Company, financed in Paris, began to dominate the industry in the capital.

The law permitting motor-buses to be used was embodied in the Locomotives on Highways Act 1896, and the first motor service commenced in Edinburgh on 19th May 1898. The same year saw services started at Falkirk, Mansfield, Llandudno, Mablethorpe, Torquay and Clacton, and in December the first rural service, between Newport Pagnell and Olney, Buckinghamshire. London had to wait for the motor-bus until 1899. It ran between Kennington Park and Victoria Station, and lasted just over a year.

Nevertheless, development in the early 20th century was rapid. In 1910 there were more motor than horse-buses in London, and by 1912 it was easier to identify the places where motor-buses where unknown than to list their local existence. In 1916 the foundations were laid for a system of territorial monopolies in England and Wales, itself reflecting the balance of power between two great holding companies, the British Electric Traction Co. (BET) and Thomas Tilling Ltd. Municipal bus operation started at Eastbourne where the council in 1908 acted to avoid the construction of an electric tramway, whose poles and wires were felt to be unsuitable for the town.

Some spontaneous road and rail coordination appeared early, when horse-cabs met trains and horse-buses served stations. The railway’s own road operations were small, there were inter-station buses in London, and the Metropolitan Railway at various times operated 15 cross-London bus routes.

By 1919 the industry was poised for expansion, which proved so rapid that 10 years later there were motor-bus services everywhere, while express coach services by 1931 linked all the main towns of England and Wales. By 1929 the techical development produced vehicles like the Leyland Titan double-decker, which could stand comparison with the tramcar, and diesel engines became widespread by 1939. Territorial expansion was matched by the growth of numerous small firms, and motor-buses were used to replace smaller tramway systems, and to complement most of the others.

The railway companies also diversified to some extent into motor-bus operation, notably the GWR, which starting in 1903, owned just over 300 buses in 1928. Few of the GWR bus services were designed specifically to feed its trains, and over much of Wales and the south west of England it was a territorial operator in its own right. Like most of the larger companies, it faced competition from small firms using light, fast buses, often imported, or war-surplus vehicles sold off by the military after 1919. The GER and some other railways also ran bus services. Ex-service gratuites and cheap hire-purchase contributed to growing investment in the bus industry, along with the policies of the so-called combines, and the municipalities.

Some of the railways had legal powers to run buses, others did not. The GWR’s was extremely doubtful, and it was partly to rectify the situation that the Big Four mainline companies promoted the Railway (Road Transport) Act of 1928, which authorised the operations. The LNER then moved to acquire United Automobile Services, one of the largest remaining “Independents”, with an east coast territory stretching from the Scottish border to south Suffolk. The “combines” (BET and Tilling) responded with a campaign to limit the threat of a railway owned bus industry and a settlement was reached whereby the mainline companies could acquire no more than 50% of the shares in their subsidiaries. A similar settlement in Scotland made Scottish Motor Traction (SMT) the railway’s partner there. As a result the railways put over £9 million into the bus industry, much of it used to buy up smaller independents , while the expected coordination of services proved largely nugatory. The LMS also had interests in municipal undertakings at Huddersfield and Todmorden, and jointly with the LNER at Sheffield and Halifax. Railway directors or senior officers on bus company boards were instructed to pursue the profitablity of the railway’s operations. This policy continued to be followed after the railways and many of the bus companies had been acquired by the British Transport Commission.

It was no coincidence that the settlements were accompanied by the passage of the Road Traffic Act 1930. This legislation gave bus operators protection from competition on each of their routes, so that smaller firms could be acquired with no risk of new ones appearing the next day. After 1930 there was thus a period of consolidation of ownership, equally marked in the express motor-coach business. So even when railways had invested in a coach operator, they would on occasion oppose the granting of licences for extra services by the Traffic Commissioners established by the Act, which also put an end to price competition, and rail cheap-day return fares then tended to settle at the same level as the return fare by bus over the parallel route.

After the passage of the Transport Act 1947, the Tilling and SMT group’s companies were sold voluntarily to the British Transport Commission, as were those of the Red & White Group, but no serious coordination followed. The BET companies were also acquired by the Transport Holdings Company in 1968, to be transferred with the company’s other bus holdings to the newly formed National Bus Company or Scottish Bus Group, while many municipal fleets passed to the Passenger Transport Executives. The link between railway and bus management now became merely a duty to cooperate, itself removed by the Transport Act 1985 which privatised the buses. When uneconomic rail services were withdrawn, bus companies, whether nationalised or independent were often reluctant to adjust their routes and timetables to replicate a withdrawn rail service. This was an enduring problem, and after privatisation and deregulation of the bus industry, coordination could only appear to worsen.