OS London Passenger Transport Map

See Also: OS Popular Edition

London Passenger Transport Map sample from SABRE Maps

The map key

The London Passenger Transport Map series were official maps created by Ordnance Survey following the London Passenger Transport Act 1933. They are a series of 12 maps, based upon the OS Popular Edition that was the primary OS map series of the time.

These maps were created following the publication of the Act and were designed to replicate as far as possible the maps included within the Act that defined the London Passenger Transport Area itself; to the extent that the colour codes stated in the Act were reused on the later maps.

For example, the Seventh Schedule to the Act, Part I reads:

The London Passenger Transport Area shall consist of the area comprised within the continuous purple line shown on the signed map (which expression in this Schedule means the map signed in triplicate by the Pvt. Honourable the Earl of Lytton, the Chairman of the Joint Committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons to which the Bill for this Act was referred and which has been deposited, as to one copy, in the Parliament Office of the House of Lords, as to another copy, in the Committee and Private Bill Office of the House of Commons, and, as to a third copy, at the Ministry of Transport)

Whilst this would appear to make the maps more valuable to public transport enthusiasts than road enthusiasts, the maps also contained as many road numbers as possible, in a style very reminiscent of the OS Ministry of Transport Road Map, though at a larger One Inch scale rather than the Half-Inch of the MoT map series.

This means that these are the earliest map series known at the One Inch scale to contain road numbers, and especially this quantity of them. Their publication date of 1934 also means that they predate the 1935 Road numbering revision, and also they are amongst the earliest known maps to show road numbers within The City.