page_title: Horsebus
section_title: History of omnibus services
hierarchical_section_title: Horsebus / History of omnibus services
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration of the car "Entreprise Générale des Dames Blanches" on an old map of Paris (Plan de la ville de Paris représentant les nouvelles voitures publiques).
context_page_description: A horse-bus or horse-drawn omnibus was a large, enclosed and sprung horse-drawn vehicle used for passenger transport before the introduction of motor vehicles. It was mainly used in the late 19th century in both the United States and Europe, and was one of the most common means of transportation in cities. In a typical arrangement, two wooden benches along the sides of the passenger cabin held several sitting passengers facing each other. The driver sat on a separate, front-facing bench, typically in an elevated position outside the passengers' enclosed cabin. In the main age of horse buses, many of them were double-decker buses. On the upper deck, which was uncovered, the longitudinal benches were arranged back to back.
  Similar, if smaller, vehicles were often maintained at country houses to convey servants and luggage to and from the railway station. Especially popular around 1870–1900, these vehicles were known as a 'private omnibuses' or 'station buses'; coachman-driven, they would usually accommodate four to six passengers inside, with room for luggage on the roof.
context_section_description: The first known public bus line (known as a "Carriage" at that time) was launched by Blaise Pascal in 1662 and was quite popular until fares were increased and access to the service was restricted to high society members by regulation. Services ceased after 15 years.
  
  In Britain, John Greenwood opened the first bus line in Britain in Manchester in 1824. His pioneering idea was to offer a service where, unlike with a stagecoach, no prior booking was necessary and the driver would pick up or set down passengers anywhere on request. 
  The Paris omnibus was started in 1828 by a businessman named Stanislas Baudry, who had begun the first French omnibus line in Nantes in 1826, using two spring-suspended carriages, each for 16 passengers. Following success in Nantes, Baudry moved to Paris and founded the Enterprise des Omnibus on rue de Lancre, with workshops on the quai de Jemmapes. In 1827 he commissioned an English coach-maker, George Shillibeer, to design a vehicle that could be stable and carry a large number of passengers. Shillibeer's design worked.   On 28 April 1828, the first Paris omnibus began service, running every fifteen minutes between La Madeleine and la Bastille. Before long, there were one hundred omnibuses in service, with eighteen different itineraries. A journey cost twenty-five centimes. The omnibuses circulated between seven in the morning and seven in the evening; each omnibus could carry between twelve and eighteen passengers.  The busiest line was that along the Grand Boulevards; it ran from eight in the morning until midnight. 
  The Paris omnibus service was an immediate popular success, with more than two and a half million passengers in the first six months.  However,  there was no reliable way to collect money from the passengers, or the fare collectors kept much of the money for themselves;  In its first years the company was continually on the verge of bankruptcy, and in despair, Baudry committed suicide in February 1830.   Baudry's partners reorganized the company and managed to keep it in business.
  In September 1828, a competing company, les Dames-Blanches, had started running its own vehicles.  In 1829 and the following years, more companies with poetic names entered the business;  les Citadines, les Tricycles, les Orléanises, les Diligentes, les Écossaises, les Béarnaises, les Carolines, les Batignollaises, les Parisiennes, les Hirondelles, les Joséphines, les Excellentes, les Sylphides, les Constantines, les Dames-Françaises,  les Algériennes, les Dames-Réunies, and les Gazelles.  The omnibus had a profound effect on Parisian life, making it possible for Parisians to work and have a social life outside their own neighborhoods.
  By 1845, there were thirteen companies in Paris operating twenty to twenty three omnibus lines. In 1855, Napoleon III had them combined into a single company, the Compagnie générale des omnibus, with a monopoly on Paris public transportation. Beginning in 1873, they were gradually replaced by tramways, and, beginning in 1906, by the omnibus automobile, or motor bus. The last horse-drawn Paris omnibus ran on 11 January 1913, from Saint-Sulpice to La Villette.
  Buses have been used on the streets of London since 1829. George Shillibeer saw the success of the Paris omnibus in service and concluded that operating similar vehicles in London. His first London "Omnibus", using the same design and name as the Paris vehicle, took up service on 4 July 1829 on the route between Paddington (The Yorkshire Stingo) and "Bank" (Bank of England) via the "New Road" (now Marylebone Rd), Somers Town and City Road. Four services were provided in each direction daily. Shillibeer's success prompted many competitors to enter the market, and for a time buses were referred to as 'Shillibeers'. Shillibeer built another bus for the Quaker Newington Academy for Girls near London; this had a total of 25 seats, and entered history as the first school bus.
  In 1850 Thomas Tilling started horse bus services, and in 1855 the London General Omnibus Company or LGOC was founded to amalgamate and regulate the
caption: A Paris omnibus in 1828
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