London Transport Board - History

History

The organisation was created on 1 January 1963 by the Transport Act 1962 and replaced the London Transport Executive (LTE) upon the dissolution of the British Transport Commission. It was an independent statutory undertaking reporting directly to the Minister of Transport, whose responsibilities were similar to those of the LTE, but with the addition of some railway lines previously the responsibility of British Railways. The first Chairman was A.B.B. Valentine, who had been the Chairman of the LTE.

The London Transport Board was responsible for the London Underground and for bus and coach services within the London Passenger Transport Area, an area with a radius of about 30 miles from Charing Cross established when the London Passenger Transport Board was formed in 1933.

Service were generally maintained and not cut as elsewhere in the country, as train services were under the Beeching Axe. The board was responsible for the Bus Reshaping Plan in 1966, a comprehensive programme of changes to bus services.

By 1970 the roads in London had become so congested that the Greater London Development Plan included in its scope policy to reduce dependence on the car. On 1 January 1970 responsibility for public transport within Greater London passed to the Greater London Council (GLC) under the Transport (London) Act 1969, with the London Transport brand retained by the GLC. Bus services outside the GLC area and Green Line Coaches were passed to a new company, London Country Bus Services, formed on 1 January 1970 as a subsidiary of the National Bus Company.