Omnibus

Categories / City Services/Transportation/Municipal Transportation
OMNIBUS (lat. omnibus - for all), a multi-seater horse-powered vehicle, the first public city route of trackless transportation. First omnibuses started operating in the summer of 1830, running from St. Petersburg to Krestovsky Island, Old and New Villages. The office of the Company was located in the house of Minyaev at Nevsky Prospect in the vicinity of Anichkov Bridge. From 1847 omnibuses began servicing city routes (by 1851 there were four such routes). The carriages of each route were painted a colour of its own. Usually, two to four horses were harnessed to a carriage. Some carriages had an upper deck on the roof called "Imperial Deck", for a lower fare. Carriages were intended for 10 to 16 persons, however the actual number of passengers exceeded that number by two to three times. The coach was seated in front, and a fare collector with a signal horn for warning the passengers, was in the back. By 1870 there were about 400 omnibuses in St. Petersburg. In 1899 engineer I.V. Romanov constructed an electricity-powered omnibus on accumulators designed for 17 passengers. In 1901 the City Duma authorized its operation on 10 city lines, however, lack of financing hindered implementation of the project. Omnibuses functioned until WW I of 1914-18 when most of the horses were requisitioned for army needs. Stage-coaches were a variation of omnibuses (multi-seater carriages for commuters, which since 1820 ran between St. Petersburg and Moscow. The same year a joint-stock company for stage-coach passenger transit was founded. The stage-coach office was located on Мalaya Morskaya Street, near St. Isaac Square, from where (later also from Sennaya Square) stage-coaches dispatched to Moscow, and later to Riga, Reval, Tsarskoe Selo, Peterhof and other cities.

Reference: Годес Я. Г. Этот новый старый трамвай. Л., 1982. С. 6-18; От конки до трамвая: Из истории петерб. транспорта / Авт.-сост. Е. Шапилов и др. СПб.; М., 1994.

Y. N. Kruzhnov. Minyaev
Romanov I.V.
Malaya Morskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city
Nevsky prospect/Saint Petersburg, city
Sennaya Square/Saint Petersburg, city
St.Isaac's Square/Saint Petersburg, city
Годес Я. Г. Этот новый старый трамвай. Л., 1982
От конки до трамвая: Из истории петерб. транспорта: [Альбом] / Авт.-сост. Е. Шапилов и др. СПб.; М., 1994 City Duma
1847