The Routemaster was designed in the 1950s to replace London's substantial network of electric trolleybuses and attained iconic status due to its remarkable longevity.
It was first displayed to the public at the Earl's Court Commercial Motor Exhibition on September 24, 1954. After extensive testing of prototype models the first vehicle entered service in 1956, and large-scale production began in 1959.
Some 2,760 models were built before construction ended in 1968 and continued to serve the city until the 1980s, when they began to be sold off for use elsewhere due to reductions in service.
A refurbishment programme allowed the buses to remain in use through the 1990s and 2000s, with the last Routemaster in London finally being withdrawn in December 2005, although the vehicles are still used on a special heritage service in the centre of the capital.
The vehicles retained their popularity and in the following years, engineers began designing a new bus based on the traditional Routemaster design, which first entered service in 2012.
Transport for London has marked 2014 as the “Year of the Bus”. In addition to the Routemaster’s 60th anniversary, its also the 75th anniversary of the RT Type bus and the 100 year anniversary of the B Type “Battle Bus”, the world’s first mass-produced motor bus which carried soldiers to the front line during the First World War.
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