London Buses - Legal Status

Legal Status

The legal identity of London Buses is actually London Bus Services Limited (LBSL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London. East Thames Buses was the trading name of another wholly owned subsidiary of TfL called, rather confusingly, London Buses Limited (LBL).

LBL was first created on 1 April 1985 in the process of the privatisation of London bus services, and acted as an arm's-length subsidiary of TfL's precursor organisation, London Regional Transport (LRT), holding twelve bus operating units (from late 1988) and other assets. The operating units were sold off in 1994/5, and their purchasers make up the majority of companies awarded bus operating tenders from the current London Buses (LBSL).

After 1994/5, the LBL company then lay dormant, passing from LRT to TfL. It was resurrected as a place for East Thames Buses to exist within TfL, separated by a chinese wall from LBSL, and acted as a London bus operator by proxy.