Conductors: a History

The very end of crew-operated Routemasters today in central London brought with it the end of conductors on mainstream buses in most of England.

Even had the Routemasters remained, the justification for conductors from a fares collection viewpoint would be weak. With the spread of the London Oyster Card, what’s the point in having a clippie when, effectively, there’s nothing left to clip?

Anyway, what’s a bus conductor? For those living outside London and basically under the age of 30, a conductor is the person who would move around the bus taking fares. Such a person was required where the driver was isolated from passengers (e.g. on a Routemaster).

From the first buses at turn of the 20th century, virtually all but a handful of deeply rural services employed both a driver and conductor. Later, rural services added conductors, as the buses used thereon increased beyond the size required to operate with a crew. Legislation in 1930 ensured that conductors, like drivers, were licenced and over a specific age, though licensing requirements were eventually dropped so far as conductors were concerned.

It was in the 1930s that once again the first minority of services dispensed with conductors.

Between 1939 and 1945 during World War II, while drivers were often "reserved", many conductors were called to the colours. It was from this point forward that women first began careers in conducting – serving the bus industry to the last.

A turning point for more rural services came in the late 1950s, when bus operating economics meant that routes were progressively converted to one-person operation (i.e. just the driver). The late sixties would find conductors in Metropolitan areas and elsewhere on the most intensive urban and inter-urban services only.

Even in the late 1960s, the urban PTEs began conversion programmes to one-person operation, such was the need to make economies. his was made possible from 1966 when double decks were allowed to operate as driver only, ten years after the revolutionary Atlantean rear engined design. The last half-cab double decks bought new in England arrived at Northampton in 1968. In 1969, the government began offering all operators a grant to buy buses that could be operated by the driver only.

In provincial England, few conductor operated buses remained by the close of the 1970s. From the mid-1980s, there was a spate of new services that effectively used conductors as a unique selling point (e.g. Badger Vectis competing against Wilts & Dorset). These tended to be marketing gimmicks, and conductor operation was left to inner London and its Routemaster routes. Until today, that is.