ABSTRACT
In the County of London, the well-planned and efficiently operated system of the London County Council employed the aesthetically neat but more expensive underground conduit system of current supply on most lines, and ran in part over horse-tramway routes which the Council had acquired. In addition a number of services were inaugurated from outer stations of the Underground, with through fares to and from central London stations. Mechanically worked buses first appeared on London streets in 1899, but the early progress of this mode of transport was hampered by high operating and maintenance costs, also by an unreliability which contrasted sharply with the rugged efficiency of the electric tramcar. In all the large cities, but particularly in London, where there was a tendency for wealth to concentrate, the white-collar class, so essential to the expanding public services and the booming activities of commerce, increased rapidly.
