Blackpool Transport

Blackpool Transport was founded in 1885 by the town council. The tramway opened on 29 September 1885 using a conduit system to operate the trams using electricity. However, due to difficulties with this method of operation, 550V overhead wiring was installed over the tracks in 1899 to replace the conduit system. On 2 July 1921, Blackpool Transport's first motorbus service commenced, with two Tilling-Stevens petrol-electric single-deck buses purchased to run a service between Cleveleys and Thornton railway station, while the first route to operate wholly within the borough of Blackpool commenced in December 1922, running between Adelaide Place and Devonshire Road.

To comply with the Transport Act 1985, the assets of Blackpool Transport were transferred to a new legal entity, Blackpool Transport Services Limited. Neighbouring operator Fylde Borough Transport, which at the time traded as Blue Buses, was taken over in 1994; it had previously been a council-owned operation itself, but spent five months in private ownership before Blackpool Transport's takeover.

The company's network was relaunched in April 2001 under the name Metro Coastlines. Along with the new name came a new colour-coded service: each core bus route was operated by vehicles painted in a livery heavily featuring that route's colour. There were twelve such routes, and the historic tramway along the promenade also had its own variation of the livery.

On 26 July 2010, Metro Coastlines branding was discontinued and the company resumed trading as Blackpool Transport. Buses had their Metro Coastlines logos removed and replaced with a new tower and waves logo, along with a black and yellow colour scheme. The tramway now uses a purple and white colour scheme, introduced in 2012 and based on Blackpool Council's main colour schemes. The tower and waves logo does not feature on the Bombardier Flexity 2 trams but is featured at the top of the central doors on the modernised English Electric Balloon trams.

Blackpool Transport has three offices from which daily operations are run. Rigby Road is the registered headquarters for the company and is where all buses and heritage trams are kept and maintained. The depot contains a bus engineering shed, heritage engineering shed and fitting and paint shops onsite. In May 2024, Blackpool Transport announced it was seeking contractors to work on refurbishing one of the older buildings at Rigby Road, with plans to fit chargers to support a future intake of between 90 and 115 battery electric buses funded by a £20 million Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) grant.

Blackpool Transport's trams are stored, maintained and operated from the Starr Gate depot on the promenade. This building houses all the "new" fleet Bombardier Flexity2 trams with a dedicated engineering bay.

For a short while, Blackpool Transport also operated a travel shop on Market Street in Blackpool. This was designed to house a customer-service team, although it was abandoned due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Blackpool Transport still use this property, but it is now closed to the public.

Bus fleet

As of October 2025, the Blackpool Transport bus fleet consisted of 98 active vehicles.