The story
Company history
Early history
London United commenced operating on 1 April 1989, as one of 12 operating subsidiaries of London Buses in preparation for privatisation. In November 1994 it was sold in a management buyout.
The company's name was derived from the former London United Tramways, that operated trams and trolleybuses in west and south west London until absorbed by the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933. London United adopted the former tram company's insignia, based on the coat of arms of the City of London, as its logo.
In January 1995, London United purchased Westlink with garages in Hounslow Heath and Kingston upon Thames.
In August 1997 London United was sold to Transdev. In 2002 Transdev purchased fellow London operator London Sovereign from the Blazefield Group.
In April 2006 both operations were rebranded with the Transdev name and logo, removing the London United and London Sovereign brands, although both companies continued as separate legal entities.
In November 2009 Transdev purchased NCP Challenger with seven Transport for London contracted routes, 87 buses and garages at Park Royal and Twickenham. These were integrated into the London United business.
RATP Dev era
In 2009, Transdev's majority owner, Caisse des dépôts et consignations, commenced negotiating with Veolia Environnement to merge Transdev with Veolia Transport. As part of the resulting agreement, it was agreed that the RATP Group, which had a minority shareholding in Transdev, would take over ownership of some of Transdev's operations in lieu of cash payment.
This resulted in London United transferring to the RATP Group, while London Sovereign remained with Transdev and become part of the merged Veolia Transdev group.
Read the full text
This agreement took effect in March 2011, and RATP Group renamed its newly acquired business London United.
In 2015, a charter unit was established under the United Transit brand with a grey and red livery.
Since July 2021, London United has taken on most routes from RATP Group's other London subsidiary Quality Line, with routes 413, 463 and S1 being transferred to Go-Ahead London.
In December 2021, RATP's London bus operations including London United were transferred to a RATP joint venture with Australia's Kelsian Group (parent company of Tower Transit) known as RATP Dev Transit London.
FirstGroup era
In February 2025, London United was included in the acquisition of RATP Dev Transit London by FirstGroup, becoming part of First Bus London.
History
When new, the 11-acre (4.5 ha) site was described as one of the finest plants in the country and was the main depot of London United Tramways with 20 covered tracks. The garage is nowadays divided into two sections, one used by London United, with an entrance off Wellington Road, and the other by Transport UK London Bus with an entrance off Stanley Road.
Fulwell was the first garage in London to receive trolleybuses in 1931, and together with Isleworth was the last to operate them until 1962. The last trams operated from the depot in 1935, although some of the tram tracks were, until recently, still visible in the cobbled surface of the Stanley Road entrance. The garage has never reached its capacity, even taking in much of the work from Twickenham when it closed in 1970, and in 2001 107 buses were allocated. In 1999 the garage housed 13 London Country buses after Arriva Croydon & North Surrey shut its Leatherhead garage. The buses on route 85 were operated from the forecourt with Arriva drivers.
History
Twickenham garage was opened by NCP Challenger on 12 November 2005.
On 31 March 2012, route 493 passed to London General.
From Wikipedia’s article on London United Busways, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4