First Aberdeen

Aberdeen Corporation

Aberdeen Corporation Tramways was formed on 26 August 1898. The company was renamed Aberdeen Corporation Transport Department when it became solely a bus operator with trams ceasing on 3 May 1958.

Grampian Regional Transport

Under local government reorganisation in 1975, the Aberdeen Corporation bus operations transferred to Grampian Regional Transport, a department of the Grampian Regional Authority.

To comply with the Transport Act 1985, Grampian Regional Transport was incorporated in 1986, with the Grampian Regional Authority retaining ownership.

In January 1989 the company was privatised under an employee stock ownership plan led by its general manager Moir Lockhead. At the time GRT operated a fleet of 200 buses and 500 employees.

Unlike future similar sales in the UK, the sale of Grampian Regional Transport was done voluntarily by the council which had no overall majority party and had no deep rooted objection to the sale. At the time, councils could negotiate privately with single buyers, rather than the later practice of competitive bidding. It was a sale of a going concern, rather than as seen in other areas in later years, a distress sale, or a forced sale for political reasons.

First Grampian

While the company continued to operate as GRT in Aberdeen, its holding company GRT Bus Group expanded through acquisition purchasing six former nationalised bus companies in England and Scotland. In April 1994 GRT Bus Group became a public limited company. In April 1995 FirstBus was formed through the merger of the Badgerline and GRT Bus Groups, with fleets in England, Wales and Scotland. Aberdeen was selected as the headquarters.

In February 1998 Grampian Regional Transport was rebranded as First Aberdeen.

As of March 2013 the First Aberdeen fleet consisted of 173 buses and coaches.

A mainstay of the Grampian Regional Transport fleet in the 1970s up to 1983 was the Alexander AL Type bodied Leyland Atlantean, supplemented by the Leyland National single-decker bus. In 1985 it moved to Alexander RH bodied Leyland Olympian double-deckers until 1988. From 1991 to 1997 the company steadily bought the Mercedes-Benz O405 single-decker.

Grampian Regional Transport was one of the first UK users of articulated buses, taking delivery of a single 17.6 metres (58 ft) Alexander-bodied articulated Mercedes-Benz O405G in November 1992. Aberdeen was one of the major locations for articulated buses in the United Kingdom with around 35 in the fleet in December 2013.

In August 2014, First Aberdeen took delivery of 26 Wright StreetLite micro-hybrid buses. 24 Yutong E12 battery electric buses were delivered in July 2023 following a brief loan period of some to First Glasgow, with 24 new Wright StreetDeck Electroliner and electrically-repowered StreetDeck double-deckers delivered in March 2025.