Scottish Motor Traction

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Scottish Motor Traction (SMT) was founded in 1905. It operated buses in much of central Scotland. Aside from its traditional bus operations, it operated an air taxi service with a De Havilland Fox Moth between July 18 and October 31, 1932. All of its operations were nationalised by the Atlee government in 1949, and the company name was retained.

SMT grew partly through the acquisition of smaller companies. Operations were decentralised to local areas, such as Central SMT in Lanarkshire (with red buses) and Western SMT (in south-west Scotland), whilst the east of Scotland services remained as SMT until the early 1960s, when the title "Eastern Scottish" was adopted (operating green buses). The legal name of Eastern Scottish was changed to Scottish Omnibuses Ltd.

Following the demise of the British Transport Commission, the SMT operations became part of the state-owned Scottish Bus Group, which later became the Scottish Transport Group following the addition of ferry services.

The Transport Act 1985 led to the deregulation of bus services across the UK, followed by privatisation of the 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.

Following privatisation, Eastern Scottish briefly reverted to its former name SMT. It was bought out by the First Group, who rebranded it First Edinburgh, and introduced the First Group corporate pink, purple and white livery to replace the former green.