Night buses outside of London

[MaidaVale]

Out of interest a few months ago, I began trawling through operator websites and bustimes data to try and compile a full list of areas outside of London that have proper overnight bus services. Solid up-to-date information on this topic seemed relatively hard to access, even on the websites of operators that run said services during the night.

I've compiled a list that includes routes that operate a 'proper' 24 hour service or dedicated night routes, including services that only operate on weekends. This list does not include "A" variants unless they are notably different. I have included some services that operate very late into the night but don't technically cover the entire 24 hour period, for example a few of Trentbarton's routes that finish at 3am. I'm also not counting long-distance coach services. Coaches such as the RedArrow, OxfordTUBE and RailAir have been included however as they're frequent express bus-style operations run by local operators running over relatively short distances.

The list in quantity order per city is as follows;

Edinburgh - 18
Nottingham - 13
Oxford - 9
Bristol - 9
Manchester - 7
Reading - 6 (+1 HEATHROW)
Brighton - 6
Glasgow - 5
Liverpool - 2
Crawley - 2
Newcastle - 2
Guildford - 1 (+1 HEATHROW)
Bath - 1
Portsmouth - 1
Southampton - 1

THIS INCLUDES MAIN AREAS SERVED ONLY, OTHER TOWNS SERVED SUCH AS WORTHING ON THE 700 ARE COUNTED AS "BRIGHTON" TO SIMPLIFY THINGS

I'd be interested to find out any others that I've missed, or if you're aware that any of these places have more/less services than I've managed to find (for example, if the data I've compiled is outdated).

 

[GusB]

There have been a few threads on the subject over the years. While some of the information is likely to be out of date, the most recent was from 2022.

Link here:

Trivia: Places with night buses every night

Which cities have night buses which run every night as opposed to weekends only? London various routes Edinburgh various routes Manchester - 43 runs all night Brighton - N25 and others Are there any others?

www.railforums.co.uk

For the rest, see this list:

Search results for query: Night buses

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

Glasgow has 11:
Citylink 1 (900 to Edinburgh but it stops in Easterhouse)
First Glasgow 5 including 1 airport
McGill's 5

 

[JJmoogle]

I'd be interested to find out any others that I've missed, or if you're aware that any of these places have more/less services than I've managed to find (for example, if the data I've compiled is outdated).

The (N/NX)94(X) between Gloucester and Cheltenham is 24 hour,

 

[Statto]

The all night buses in Liverpool (86 / 86A) have been withdrawn (i don't think they restarted after covid), although Stagecoach started an N1 Allerton - Birkenhead last December but that only operates Thursday night / Friday morning to Saturday night / Sunday morning

 

[richw]

The 12 in Torbay

 

[higthomas]

Others I'm aware of:
The 510 Harlow to Stansted
Crawley is more than 2.
Isle of wight has a few (not 24 hours but pretty late)
Slough has a couple (for Heathrow)
Luton has at least the busway one
The Leicester to Birmingham airport aircoach maybe counts by your definition.
Birmingham has the X1 to the airport
The south west falcon also maybe fits your criteria.
Derby has a few night buses (incl the 24/7 skyline to Leicester)
Bournemouth/Poole have at least 2
Edinburgh airport has some coach style services that are 24/7 bus don't go into the city, e.g. ember
The x30 bus Southend to Stansted and x20 to Colchester are pretty much 24/7.
The 724 bus across Hertfordshire to Heathrow is basically 24 hours.
The fast way buses in Dartfordish in North Kent are 24 hours
High Wycombe to Heathrow has one bus in service all night.
I think the N1 Lancaster-Uni is still running (but it's outside of term time so not certain)
Warwick uni to Leamington spa buses
Portsmouth seems to have at least 2

 

[Nammer]

Portsmouth has 2 x 24 hour night routes, 7 days a week;
Service 2 (First Solent) and
Service 23 (Stagecoach)

 

[Geordie driver]

Not sure if it counts as a night bus or a very early bus, 787 Newcastle City centre to Newcastle Airport starting soon, first bus leaves 02 50.

 

[Gloster]

On Fridays and Saturdays the Isle of Wight has a few night buses from Newport to Cowes, East Cowes and Ryde, the last direct or via Ventnor. Last buses are 02.30 to Ryde direct, 03.00 to Lake via Ventnor, 03.05 to East Cowes (its only night bus) and 03.35 to Cowes. Not a frequent service, but it is a small island full of pensioners who are in bed with their cocoa by ten o’clock.

 

[WAB]

Leeds has the N1, which has the only two proper service buses on the road in Yorkshire after around 1 am. There's also a single board in York for a one-way bus which only operates in service out of the city to the halls of residence.

 

[Roger1973]

Luton has at least the busway one

Arriva Busway A (Luton Airport - Luton - Dunstable) is 24/7. Busway Z (Luton - Houghton Regis - Dunstable) has quite a long operating day, but doesn't have a night service.

Arriva Green Line 757 (for some purposes at least it's registere as 'local bus' rather than 'coach', Luton - Luton Airport - London) is also 24/7

The fast way buses in Dartfordish in North Kent are 24 hours

Fastrack route A (Dartford - Greenhithe) is 24/7, although the daytime route extends to Bluewater (about 0700 to 2300 weekdays)


Some of the routes in to Heathrow, e.g. Thames Valley's from the Bracknell / Slough direction are almost 24/7, with maybe a 2 hour break in the middle of the night - operationally this might be the meal break in a night duty, it might not, so not sure they qualify.

 

[stadler]

Out of interest a few months ago, I began trawling through operator websites and bustimes data to try and compile a full list of areas outside of London that have proper overnight bus services. Solid up-to-date information on this topic seemed relatively hard to access, even on the websites of operators that run said services during the night.

I've compiled a list that includes routes that operate a 'proper' 24 hour service or dedicated night routes, including services that only operate on weekends. This list does not include "A" variants unless they are notably different. I have included some services that operate very late into the night but don't technically cover the entire 24 hour period, for example a few of Trentbarton's routes that finish at 3am. I'm also not counting long-distance coach services. Coaches such as the RedArrow, OxfordTUBE and RailAir have been included however as they're frequent express bus-style operations run by local operators running over relatively short distances.

The list in quantity order per city is as follows;

Edinburgh - 18
Nottingham - 13
Oxford - 9
Bristol - 9
Manchester - 7
Reading - 6 (+1 HEATHROW)
Brighton - 6
Glasgow - 5
Liverpool - 2
Crawley - 2
Newcastle - 2
Guildford - 1 (+1 HEATHROW)
Bath - 1
Portsmouth - 1
Southampton - 1

THIS INCLUDES MAIN AREAS SERVED ONLY, OTHER TOWNS SERVED SUCH AS WORTHING ON THE 700 ARE COUNTED AS "BRIGHTON" TO SIMPLIFY THINGS

I'd be interested to find out any others that I've missed, or if you're aware that any of these places have more/less services than I've managed to find (for example, if the data I've compiled is outdated).

Crawley has four (not two) 24/7 night buses:

• 10 - Go Ahead Metrobus
• 20 - Go Ahead Metrobus
• 100 - Go Ahead Metrobus
• 200 - Go Ahead Metrobus

The 10 20 100 200 all run 24/7 on seven nights a week (every night).

Brighton has seven (not six) night buses:

• N1 - Go Ahead Brighton & Hove
• N5 - Go Ahead Brighton & Hove
• N7 - Go Ahead Brighton & Hove
• N12 - Go Ahead Brighton & Hove
• N14 - Go Ahead Brighton & Hove
• N25 - Go Ahead Brighton & Hove
• N700 - Stagecoach

The N1 N7 N25 run 24/7 on seven nights a week (every night). The N5 N12 N14 run 24/6 on six nights a week (all except Monday when they do not run). The N700 runs 24/2 on two nights a week (on Saturday and Sunday only).

Portsmouth has two (not one) night buses:

• 2 - First
• 23 - Stagecoach

The 2 23 all run 24/7 on seven nights a week (every night).

 

[Roger1973]

Reading Buses 24/7 routes are now 5,6 (operating as a circular in each direction overnight, rather than separate services), 17, 21 and 26.

13/14 (Woodley) has some quite late journeys, but not a night service. Before Covid, there was a night service (it only ran one way, but I can't remember if it was the 13 or 14) on Friday and Saturday nights, but (from memory) I don't think it came back after Covid.

 

[WF4HA5HE]

Leeds has the N1, which has the only two proper service buses on the road in Yorkshire after around 1 am. There's also a single board in York for a one-way bus which only operates in service out of the city to the halls of residence.

I agree Leeds 1/N1 is the only proper bus I can think of in Yorkshire that's runs somewhat 24 hour albeit not the best route for the only 24 hour bus.

 

[JD2168]

There are no 24 hour services in South Yorkshire, only ones after midnight are odd trips on certain routes such as Stagecoach 88 from City to Ecclesfield at 12:05am which runs off a 2a as a way of getting the bus back to depot.

 

[Mcv378]

The 724 Arriva service is now 24 hours a day between Harlow Essex and Heathrow

 

[gomango]

The list in quantity order per city is as follows;

Edinburgh - 18
Nottingham - 13
Oxford - 9
Bristol - 9
Manchester - 7
Reading - 6 (+1 HEATHROW)
Brighton - 6
Glasgow - 5
Liverpool - 2
Crawley - 2
Newcastle - 2
Guildford - 1 (+1 HEATHROW)
Bath - 1
Portsmouth - 1
Southampton - 1

THIS INCLUDES MAIN AREAS SERVED ONLY, OTHER TOWNS SERVED SUCH AS WORTHING ON THE 700 ARE COUNTED AS "BRIGHTON" TO SIMPLIFY THINGS

I'd be interested to find out any others that I've missed, or if you're aware that any of these places have more/less services than I've managed to find (for example, if the data I've compiled is outdated).

Stirling has the Midland Bluebird Unilink service that runs until about 3:15am.

 

[WM Bus]

Birmingham has the X1 which runs 24/7 to the Airport operated by Coventry Garage.
The 63 and 74 also run overnight on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

The weekday 63 has 2 hour gap between 2am and 4am and the 97 all week has a 2 hour gap from 1am till 3am.

 

[Llandudno]

Of course in some parts of the UK, night buses may refer to routes running after 6pm….!!!

 

[fife_circle]

Up in Aberdeen we have the 20 which runs until 4am at a 30min frequency, excluding Sunday and Monday nights.

 

[Fundee on Tay]

In Dundee/Fife the 99 runs very late on Friday/Saturday nights - used to be the N99 but recently these journeys have been changed to the plain 99 despite serving University halls in St. Andrews not served by the regular 99.

Another peculiarity is the 99S, which runs very late during the week and on a slightly different route to the regular 99, but there is very little information about it online.

 

[AndrewE]

The 12 in Torbay

Really? the current timetable https://tiscon-maps-stagecoachbus.s3.amazonaws.com/Timetables/South West/September23/12 030923.pdf says there is nothing southbound between 0202 (or 0302 half-way to Torquay only) and 0528. Not really an all night service, to my mind. Meanwhile, in most places, we would be grateful for some evening buses!

 

[Tayway]

In Dundee/Fife the 99 runs very late on Friday/Saturday nights - used to be the N99 but recently these journeys have been changed to the plain 99 despite serving University halls in St. Andrews not served by the regular 99.

Another peculiarity is the 99S, which runs very late during the week and on a slightly different route to the regular 99, but there is very little information about it online.

The 99S runs Monday to Thursday nights and is subsided by the University of St Andrews (and is therefore free to staff and students). There's some more information about it here:

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/students/support/night-bus/

The Friday and Saturday night 99 journeys are run commercially by Stagecoach, and run all year including outside University term term.

 

[Deerfold]

The 724 Arriva service is now 24 hours a day between Harlow Essex and Heathrow

Although on a Sunday morning there's a 4 hour gap from Heathrow and a 4.5 hour gap on Sunday evening from Harlow.

 

[richw]

Really? the current timetable https://tiscon-maps-stagecoachbus.s3.amazonaws.com/Timetables/South West/September23/12 030923.pdf says there is nothing southbound between 0202 (or 0302 half-way to Torquay only) and 0528. Not really an all night service, to my mind. Meanwhile, in most places, we would be grateful for some evening buses!

They are certainly night buses. Nowhere did the OP ask for all night services,

I've compiled a list that includes routes that operate a 'proper' 24 hour service or dedicated night routes

They run as N12, and as such are dedicate night services. They run at night

 

[AndrewE]

They are certainly night buses. Nowhere did the OP ask for all night services,

Try reading the OP again then. I would have thought that "a 'proper' 24 hour service" implied regular services through the night. No?

 

[richw]

Try reading the OP again then. I would have thought that "a 'proper' 24 hour service" implied regular services through the night. No?

Or dedicated night services.

Which they are

 

[AndrewE]

Or dedicated night services.

Which they are

The 12 is not a dedicated night service (it runs through the day, doesn't have "N" in its number) and doesn't run between 2 and 5 am. So it's neither a 24-hour service nor a dedicated night service.

 

[richw]

The 12 is not a dedicated night service (it runs through the day, doesn't have "N" in its number) and doesn't run between 2 and 5 am. So it's neither a 24-hour service nor a dedicated night service.

It runs as N12 at night.

Is 2am, 3am in the night. Yes, or certainly is where I come from