Scottish Motor Traction

Scottish Motor Traction (SMT) was a Scottish bus operator founded in 1905 that ran services for most of the 20th century.

Scottish Motor Traction (SMT) was founded in Edinburgh in 1905 by William Johnston Thomson. It operated buses in much of central Scotland. Aside from its bus operations, by 1930 SMT had dealerships in Edinburgh selling cars and trucks at 89 Haymarket Terrace and 71 Lothian Road. It also operated an air taxi service using a De Havilland Fox Moth between 18 July and 31 October 1932. For many years it owned Dryburgh Abbey Hotel.

Following legislation that allowed railway companies to invest in bus operators, the London & North Eastern Railway and London, Midland & Scottish Railway took stakes in SMT in 1929. The next year, following its takeover of another operator, SMT started an express coach service from Edinburgh to London. SMT also acquired control of Walter Alexander & Sons bus services and coachbuilding operations, the Alexander family joining the SMT board.

SMT grew partly through the acquisition of smaller companies. Operations were decentralised to local areas, such as Central SMT in Lanarkshire, and Western SMT in south-west Scotland (both with red buses). The east of Scotland services operated as SMT (with green buses). Upon nationalisation of the SMT group's bus and coach services by the Attlee government in 1949, those of SMT itself were transferred to a new British Transport Commission subsidiary, Scottish Omnibuses Ltd. This continued to operate as SMT until the early 1960s, when the fleet name Eastern Scottish was adopted. Activities other than bus operations remained in private hands as SMT Sales & Service Ltd.

Following the demise of the British Transport Commission, SMT's operations became part of the state-owned Scottish Bus Group in 1962; this later became the Scottish Transport Group in 1969 following the addition of ferry services.

The Transport Act 1985 led to the deregulation of UK bus services, followed by privatisation of the bus-operating Scottish Transport Group subsidiaries. Western Scottish (formerly Western SMT) was sold to its local management in 1991, and was bought out by the Stagecoach Group in 1994, which renamed it Stagecoach West Scotland. The ferry services, run as Caledonian MacBrayne, remain owned by the Scottish government.

Following privatisation, Eastern Scottish briefly reverted to its former name SMT. It was bought out by GRT Group in October 1994.

In June 1995 GRT Group and Badgerline merged to create First Bus. Soon after this, SMT was split into two, with operations passing to neighbouring Lowland and Midland Bluebird. The SMT name and livery were initially retained.