Trivia: Places with night buses every night

[telstarbox]

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?

 

[43055]

A few around the East Midlands by trent barton and kinchbus:

Skylink between Leicester - Loughborough - East Midlands Airport - Derby
Skylink between Nottingham - Long Eaton - East Midlands Airport
Indigo between Nottingham - Beeston - Long Eaton
Red Arrow non stop Derby - Nottingham (Not Sunday night/Monday morning)

 

[Hophead]

Metrobus routes 10, 100 & 200 serving Gatwick run 24/7. The 20 currently pauses overnight.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

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?

Bristol has a number (43, 48, 70, 75, 76 from memory) and whilst Bath has U1 term times

 

[SteveHFC]

Luton - Route A between Dunstable and Luton Airport runs 24 hours a day (every 30 minutes is the lowest frequency)

 

[NorthOxonian]

There are a few night buses in Oxford which run every night (in some cases Monday to Saturday only though I think that's still in the spirit of your question). Some of these even run into the county, to places like Witney or Chipping Norton. There's also the Oxford Tube coach service to London - not quite as frequent overnight as it used to be, but still very much 24/7 - as well as the coaches to Heathrow and Gatwick.

Though typically night routes here have a fairly sparse service on Mondays to Thursdays (perhaps one or two departures and ending at 1am or thereabouts), compared to a more intense service on weekend nights.

 

[Llandudno]

It won’t be long before someone starts a thread with ‘Evening buses after 6pm’ …..!

 

[WM Bus]

Birmingham X1. City Centre to Airport/NEC via Yardley & Sheldon runs 24/7.
Night bus allocated 75XX Platinum.

 

[telstarbox]

Cheers everyone

The theme I'm getting is places with a lot of tourists/students who might be out late, or places where an airport provides reliable demand (including shift workers) every night of the week.

 

[TravelDream]

I suppose a lot depends how you define 24/7. There are some which have a multi-hour break/ breaks overnight but some still call 24/7 like the Oxford Tube.


I imagine a lot of major airports have bus routes which operate 24/7 or close to.
Birmingham Airport has the X1 which operates hourly overnight.
Bristol Airport has the Bristol Flyer which operates hourly overnight.
East Midlands Airport has Skylink to Nottingham, and Leicester/ Derby which both operate at least hourly overnight.
Edinburgh has the Airlink which operates each 30 minutes.
Heathrow has the N9 to Central London each 30 minutes as well as some night coaches.
Manchester Airport has the 43 which runs at least every 30 minutes overnight.

Many of these will be under some special arrangement to run 24/7 as not many would be commercially viable operating to the airport between 10pm and 3am and from the airport between 12-2am and 7am.


Outside of airports, Bristol has quite a few.
The Bristol Flyer as well as the 43, 48, 49, 70 and 75/76.

Nightbus

Late night buses for Bristol & Bath Bristol & Bath have an extensive network of bus services which run after midnight, with several services running 24/7. So whether you’re using the bus to travel for work or for a night out, catch our late night services for a cheap and reliable journey home.

www.firstbus.co.uk

Cardiff used to have a couple, but none operate right now. The last buses end by midnight and don't start-up again until just before 5am.

 

[Roger1973]

Reading Buses have a few 24/7 services, broadly hourly on each -

5/6 - Basingstoke Road / Whitley Wood (these run as a circular, out as 5 and back as 6 and vice versa rather than using the daytime terminus points)
17 - Tilehurst - Wokingham Road (seems to follow daytime route)
21 - Lower Earley via University (seems to follow daytime route)
26 - Calcot (route in to town centre is slightly different to daytime route - think buses do a cycle of 5 / 6 / 26 rather than each being separate.)

Service is (or was last time I looked) enhanced on Friday / Saturday night, with 17 being half hourly until about 0300, and an hourly night 13 (Woodley) - the latter seems not to be running at the moment.

First Berkshire's Slough - Heathrow routes have some very early morning journeys, but looking at their website, it does not seem to be an all-night service any more (fairly sure one or two routes were before Covid.) Likewise, some of Courtney / Thames Valley's routes to Heathrow had very late / early journeys (not sure if they ever quite qualified as an all-night service) but this also seems to have been cut back.

 

[MedwayValiant]

Arriva Fastrack A runs 24/7 between Dartford and Greenhithe.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Not seen mention of the Go North East N21 and the 56 that run through the night from Newcastle to Durham and Sunderland respectively

 

[Simon75]

First Essex
X30 Southend- Chelmsford-Stansted
Arriva Shires
510 Harlow -Stansted

 

[Roger1973]

Arriva / Green Line 757 (London - Luton, which is registered as local bus rather than being a 'coach' service) has an all night service.

 

[jkkne]

Not seen mention of the Go North East N21 and the 56 that run through the night from Newcastle to Durham and Sunderland respectively

Though the N21 is penned to go back down to Friday and Saturday only from July 24th as part of GNEs extensive service cuts

 

[dodecahedron67]

York has 24/7 in university term time with the 66 and CB1 (N66)

 

[WY Bus Spotter]

Leeds - Lawnswood N1, though it only runs during university term time.

 

[Jordan Adam]

Not sure if it strictly counts but the Ember Service E1/E2 between Edinburgh and Dundee operates 24/7. As does the Citylink 900/N900 between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

 

[GusB]

We've had a request reopen an older thread on the subject, but this one is the most recent concerning night buses. The older thread is here:

Areas that still have night buses?

Been reading a little about the N29 in London and behaviour on it, outside London how many areas still have night buses? In the early 1980 i used to catch the 02 45 from Newcastle central station home, is was both chaos and fun, even the drivers seemed to enjoy it, on a weekend it was always...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Simon75]

How many night buses have been list since covid ?

 

[Roger1973]

In Berkshire -

Reading Buses still have an all night (or '24/7') service every night on a few routes -

5 / 6 (Hourly, Reading - Basingstoke Road - Whitley Wood - Reading in each direction)
17 (Hourly, Tilehurst - Reading - Wokingham Road - additional bus to make it half-hourly on Friday and Saturday nights)
21 (Hourly, Reading - University Campus - Lower Earley)
26 (Hourly, Reading - Calcot)

If my understanding is right, the 5, 6 and 26 is a cycle done with two buses, the 17 and 21 require a bus each.

Before covid, there was a Friday and Saturday night service on route 13 (Reading - Woodley) which seems to have gone (there's one journey after midnight on Friday but not Saturday night now), and there was a second night bus on route 21 to provide a half hourly service (I can't remember if the latter ran in university terms only.)

I'm fairly sure that all were suspended during 'peak lockdown'.

Thames Valley 703 (Bracknell - Slough - Heathrow) has last arrival at Bracknell at 0041 and first departure at 0245 which (under the old London Transport rules where any duty that crossed 0300 was classed as a night duty) might count.

First Berkshire route 4 (Slough - Heathrow) seems to have an all-night service, and 7 (Britwell - Slough - Heathrow) has only a very short gap between last and first buses, and again may involve a night duty.

I think these were broadly similar before covid.

Elsewhere, Arriva route A (Dunstable - Luton - Luton Airport) has an all-night service (about every 30 minutes through the night) and Arriva's Green Line 757 (Luton - London) and 724 (Harlow - Heathrow) both have journeys during the night.

(edit to add) - the Luton Airport - Parkway Station shuttle that Go-Ahead run (on behalf of Thameslink) also has an all-night service. I imagine this will come off once the 'DART' thing is up and running. I don't know if they are having an overlap in case of any problems with the DART in its first few weeks or whatever.

Arriva 'Fastrack' route A has an hourly all night service between Dartford and Greenhithe.

 

[Martin1988]

How many night buses have been list since covid ?

I understand that here in Bristol there were late night journeys on either Service 3 or Service 4 which were withdrawn during Covid and subsequently not reinstated. As far as known the 24 hour service provision on the 43, 48, 49, 75 and 76 remained throughout the lockdown periods however

 

[NorthernSpirit]

Leeds retains the N1 (City Centre to Lawnswood) and is West Yorkshire's only nightbus (as in it uses an N prefix) as of 2023.

Probably won't count but still worthy of mentioning that the N9 Leeds to Cleckheaton, the N10 Leeds to Wakefield and the late journeys on the 36 Leeds to Harrogate & Ripon haven't been reinstated sadly. Come to think of it, I don't think the lates on the 202 and 203 Leeds to Huddersfield have either.

The 590 or 592 from Halifax to Todmorden still retains the 2345 journey, unlike the 571 that ran from Halifax to as far as Lightcliffe (despite the destination blind stating Whinney Hill) in the evenings, whose 2225 and 2345 were lost when Arriva took over in 2022. The 2345 often terminated at Brighouse bus station at 0004 when it was suppose to continue and terminate at Lightcliffe (at 0016) before running dead to Skircoat Road.

 

[Springs Branch]

Maybe shows I'm a bit behind the times, but reading this thread I was surprised to see Glasgow has no 7-nights-a-week local night buses anymore (not counting the Citylink to Edinburgh).

Historically, Glasgow was one of the pioneers of regular all-night bus services in the days when only the biggest cities (London, Manchester, Birmingham & Edinburgh) had these.

 

[SouthEastBuses]

Metrobus Crawley has permanent 24/7 routes just like London and Bristol. The routes in question are the Fastway 10 (Bewbush - Town Centre - Gatwick Airport), which runs every 30 minutes during the night, the Fastway 100 (Maidenbower - Redhill via Crawley, Gatwick Airport & Horley) which runs mostly every hour during the night (but with a two hour gap between midnight and 2am) and on the 200 between Gatwick Airpot & Bewbush only (roughly every hour).

Pre Covid, the 24/7 service on the 200 used to extend on the full route to Horsham (every hour) but sadly I can't see that coming back as the times I used the 24/7 service on the 200 I was very often the only passenger onboard!

Also pre covid, the Fastway 20 used to be 24/7 between Broadfield & Gatwick Airport (iirc also every hour) but the 20 is no longer a 24/7 route

 

[telstarbox]

Interesting - are those used mainly by airport staff or do passengers stay in local hotels and use them too?

 

[SouthEastBuses]

Interesting - are those used mainly by airport staff or do passengers stay in local hotels and use them too?

Probably airport stuff, although I would imagine they might be popular with Crawley residents who have early morning flights to catch.

 

[kevjs]

Nottingham City Transport has the N4 and N34 which run 6 nights (not Sunday) which combined with the daytime UniLink 4 and UniLink 34 offer a round the clock service but with some differences to the routes overnight, but only during university term time.

 

[LUYMun]

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, Stagecoach South experimented with all-night operations on their 'Gold 1' bus route between Aldershot and Camberley with an additional stop at Frimley Park Hospital (bar Sunday night/Monday morning).

Stagecoach South does still operate the N1 (no association with Gold 1) in Guildford overnight every night, though on university term times only.