| Rollsigns from England (Great Britain) |
| The rollsigns for the country of England are broken up into their individual systems. Click or tap on a logo icon to see the rollsign(s) for that system. |
| The history of London city and county transport services and their path to privatization. Until the mid 1980s, bus services in London were (with very few exceptions) both planned and operated by London Transport. In the areas surrounding London, most services were planned and operated by London Country, a subsidiary of the state-owned National Bus Company (London Country had previously been part of London Transport). There were some smaller operators running services too, generally filling in a few gaps. That all changed in the 1980s as the UK government wanted to bring more private enterprise in. So, within London, although the network remained (and still is) centrally planned, the routes are now put out to tender every few years, so that companies can bid for the contracts to run them. London Transport's own bus operations were divided into smaller companies, which were privatised in 1994/95. Outside London, a different approach was taken. Bus services were deregulated, enabling operators to run what they want, where they want, when they want and charging whatever fares they want, with no public subsidy. Where there are gaps in the network, whether this is daytime routes which nobody wants to run, or routes where nobody wants to run the evening or Sunday service without subsidy, the local authorities can decide to subsidise them, but must offer them out for companies to bid for the subsidy. The contracts are usually limited to between one year and five years so they can change operator. The state-owned companies were sold off to the private sector. In some cases, including London Country, the larger companies were broken up into smaller units, to encourage more competition. |