Autobuses LAT

It all began on the beginnings of the 20th century, when businessman's from the area started to set regular passenger lines that connected Murcia with its suburbs, which slowly were gaining ground to the tram that operated back then. On the decade of 1950, this services were regulated through concessions granted by the central government, with more than 20 different concessions.

On the decade of 1970, a process of concessions grouping began. From one side, the businessman Enrique Botas Blanco, who in 1996 was awarded the contract for urban transport of the city, took four of the concessions to the towns in the surrounding area of Murcia. On the other side, some merges between independent enterprises that operated on the same corridors happened. In 1971, Botas Blanco transferred the urban lines to Autobuses Urbanos de Murcia, S.A. (Aumusa), also of his property, and in 1976 he created the enterprise Lineas Regulares dek Sudeste, S.A. (Lirsa), which became the holder of his interurban concessions.

From 1980 onwards, the recently created regional council of Murcia adopted a merging and rationalisation on the transport services policy, thus promoting the unification of enterprises and concessions. Because of that, in 1981, ten enterprises merged to create Transportes de Viajeros de Murcia, S.A. (Travimusa), making that way two big groups dedicated to the public transport: Lirsa and Travimusa. That same year, Botas Blanco managed to get awarded again the urban buses through the enterprises Lirsa and Aumusa.

At the begins of 1982, Travimusa bought Lirsa and Aumusa with the support of the regional council. After that union, a joint mark was created, called LAT, using the first letter of the name of each enterprise: Lirsa, Aumusa and Travimusa. The scheme of colors was orange. Apart from that, a plan of coordination of lines was created to offer a better service for the user.

On the following years, Travimusa took over the concessions that were still held by other enterprises, making LAT reach all the points of the Huerta de Murcia and positioning as the main enterprise.

In 1999, the enterprise Busmar, S.A. joined LAT, so the name was renamed to Latbus and its color scheme was changed to white, orange and violet.

Between the end of 1999 and the begins of the year 2000, the concessions that were property of the four enterprises were readjusted. They started to have two autonomic concessions: MUR-092 between Murcia, the Valle de Ricote and the Mar Menor (Busmar) and MUR-092 for the metropolitan area of Murcia (Travimusa). Lirsa and Aumusa continued to be the urban service holders until August 2000, when the concession was transferred to Travimusa.

In 2012, the town hall of Murcia put out to tender the concession of urban buses which was awarded to the group of companies Transportes de Murcia, formed by the enterprises Martín, Ruiz and Fernanbus. Because of that, LAT started to only have the autonomic concessions after 30 years of operating the urban lines.

At the begins of the 20th century, the fleet was mostly composed by Mercedes-Benz O 405 Hispano VOV buses.

Subsequently, the Hispano Habit buses were introduced, passing to be most of the fleet.

From the modernization of the year 2015, new vehicles such as the Sunsundegui Astral, the Castrosua Magnus and the Iveco Crossway were added. Most of this buses were second-handed from Madrid concessionaires.

Below is the list with some of the models that the enterprise has had along their history: