Two top transport authors have pooled resources to produce what is surely a landmark book covering the British bus industry from 1980 to 2000. Prolific photographer Peter Rowland took all the photos featured, which are accompanied by text from Stewart J Brown. “We have collaborated before and we had the material at our disposal. What we wanted to do was to produce a comprehensive look at the era – we can’t say definitive as we would never have got it finished,” said Stewart.
The 1980 industry is described in the book as one of ‘stable decline,’ with bus passenger figures having fallen steadily over the previous 30 years, but the coach industry was on the verge of remarkable expansion.
The National Bus Company ran 15,538 vehicles, Passenger Transport Executives (PTEs) 10,479, London Transport 5,631, the municipal sector 5,361 and the Scottish Bus Group 3,718. Then there was a myriad of independents.
There were still just under 1,000 traditional front-engined double-deckers running outside London in 1980, many of them being Bristol Lodekkas with the NBC – along with 2,800 AEC Routemasters in the Capital.
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