Which area of the UK outside London has the best night bus network?

[PTR 444]

I’ve been spending the past week on the Isle of Wight and I have to say, it must have one of the best nightbus networks for a rural area, if not the entire UK. Where I’ve been staying, the last bus passes by just a few minutes before midnight, while another nearby road has buses as late as 1am on Mon-Thurs, and 3am on a Friday. Compare that to my home village which is larger but has no buses later than 11pm. While not bad in all, it does make coming back from a night out a lot more of a challenge, especially as the taxi fare can be extortionate from town. Another large city I have lived in with good nightlife had its entire nightbus network axed 8 years ago, apart from one route serving the city’s main university. No wonder Uber are making their money’s worth there now.

So if London and the Isle of Wight can succeed in providing a basic bus service for nightgoers, are there any other urban areas that fare better? By that I mean a 24-hour service 6 days a week along all the area’s major transport corridors, with frequency being no less than hourly during the small hours. If not, is it all down to cost cutting, or simply because a market for this sort of travel in that area does not exist in the first place?

 

[cnjb8]

Nottingham is good. TrentBartons Indigo and Skylink Nottingham are 24/7, and Red Arrow is 24 hours on Friday and Saturday. NCT run a night network that covers the busy bits of the city like West Bridgford, Clifton and Bulwell

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Bristol has a decent night network with a hourly services on the north south cross city 75/76, to UWE on the 70, to the east side of the city on the 43 and 48/49, and near 24hour coverage on the 39/X39 to Bath.

There were some other ones that went into the early hours pre-Covid IIRC, including the U1 to the Bristol Uni halls via Clifton, but think some of those were suspended and may not return.

 

[Flange Squeal]

Brighton has a fairly good night bus network - click here for map. That said, the N8/N12/N14/N29 on the map appear not to be running at the moment (guess either COVID or the map is just outdated?). The N7 and N25 offer an all-night service (hourly and half-hourly respectively), essentially making those sections of routes 7 and 25 24/7 services. The N1/N5 offer an early morning hourly service after the last route 1/5 journeys, between around 0045 and 0245.

Lothian Buses' Night Bus map (click here) appears to show a fairly comprehensive network, with many offering a 30-60 min frequency. Some are just one or two journeys, however I'm unsure if that is just post-COVID or their usual levels.

 

[Llandudno]

I’ve been spending the past week on the Isle of Wight and I have to say, it must have one of the best nightbus networks for a rural area, if not the entire UK. Where I’ve been staying, the last bus passes by just a few minutes before midnight, while another nearby road has buses as late as 1am on Mon-Thurs, and 3am on a Friday. Compare that to my home village which is larger but has no buses later than 11pm. While not bad in all, it does make coming back from a night out a lot more of a challenge, especially as the taxi fare can be extortionate from town. Another large city I have lived in with good nightlife had its entire nightbus network axed 8 years ago, apart from one route serving the city’s main university. No wonder Uber are making their money’s worth there now.

So if London and the Isle of Wight can succeed in providing a basic bus service for nightgoers, are there any other urban areas that fare better? By that I mean a 24-hour service 6 days a week along all the area’s major transport corridors, with frequency being no less than hourly during the small hours. If not, is it all down to cost cutting, or simply because a market for this sort of travel in that area does not exist in the first place?

Probably London’s only succeeds because of a huge amount of public subsidy, are any other night buses in other parts of the country subsidised?

 

[Flange Squeal]

Reading Buses' 5, 6, 17, 21 and 26 all offer at least an hourly service overnight, offering a 24/7 service on various spokes out to the west, south and east. The 5 and 6 are timed to offer two buses per hour between Reading and Whitley Wood.

 

[CN04NRJ]

Brighton has a fairly good night bus network - click here for map. That said, the N8/N12/N14/N29 on the map appear not to be running at the moment (guess either COVID or the map is just outdated?). The N7 and N25 offer an all-night service (hourly and half-hourly respectively), essentially making those sections of routes 7 and 25 24/7 services. The N1/N5 offer an early morning hourly service after the last route 1/5 journeys, between around 0045 and 0245.

Lothian Buses' Night Bus map (click here) appears to show a fairly comprehensive network, with many offering a 30-60 min frequency. Some are just one or two journeys, however I'm unsure if that is just post-COVID or their usual levels.

Some of them are at a full timetable - one example being the N30 with the first and last journeys of which operating while there normal 30s out on the road.

 

[duncanp]

Edinburgh has quite a comprehensive night bus network, although the frequency does not compare to that in London.

https://www.lothianbuses.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/NB_Network-Map_210627-2.pdf

Compare that to Birmingham, which has no dedicated night bus network, although there are a few routes with very early and late services, and an hourly service all night on route X1 to the airport.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Many of them have been killed off by cheap and plentiful (and easy to arrange*) taxis like Uber.

* Many younger people probably don't, but memories of the old days of trying to get a black cab or phoning a minicab who could barely hear you and just said 5 minutes and you had no idea of which was yours...enough to have you running to the bus stop.

 

[johncrossley]

Many towns near airports enjoy 24 hours services.

 

[Deerfold]

Transdev have introduced some impressive last buses in recent years. They've reintroduced a lot of late buses, but not their night buses yet. So, there's a Friday and Saturday 0020 Bradford to Keighley (662) and 2340 Leeds to Keighley (60), but no post midnight buses on the 36 (Leeds to Harrogate) or X43 (Manchester to Burnley) which both had services until 0300 pre-Covid.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Transdev have introduced some impressive last buses in recent years. They've reintroduced a lot of late buses, but not their night buses yet. So, there's a Friday and Saturday 0020 Bradford to Keighley (662) and 2340 Leeds to Keighley (60), but no post midnight buses on the 36 (Leeds to Harrogate) or X43 (Manchester to Burnley) which both had services until 0300 pre-Covid.

The sort of regional services they operate probably have more potential, as a taxi would be comparatively expensive. It's city night buses that have been decimated by cheap and easily booked taxis, because why wouldn't you go door to door at the time of your choosing if it'll cost the same, or even less if there's more than one person?

 

[NorthOxonian]

Oxford has a pretty good night bus network.

The Oxford Tube provides a 24/7 coach service to London (though currently every two hours during the night - I assume hourly service will return with the students in October since it was fairly well used). There are also coaches about every two hours throughout the night to Heathrow and Gatwick. Various local routes then also have night services (typically one or two late departures on weeknights and a full service on Friday and Saturday nights).

 

[Deerfold]

Nottingham is good. TrentBartons Indigo and Skylink Nottingham are 24/7, and Red Arrow is 24 hours on Friday and Saturday. NCT run a night network that covers the busy bits of the city like West Bridgford, Clifton and Bulwell

Trentbarton have quite a few night routes out of Derby too - there's an hourly 6N to/from Belper until 0305 FS, hourly H1 to Heanor until 0305, Indigo hourly to Nottingham FS until 0325 (the daily night service doesn't cover the whole route), the hourly X38 FS to Burton until 0330.

There's a journey at 0030FS to Ashbourne on the Swift.

Nottingham also has the Rainbow 1 half hourly on Fridays/Saturdays to Eastwood, 3B to the Hucknall estates (all until after 0300) - also a Saturday 3N from Mansfield to Sutton and Kirby in Ashfield, FS hourly until 0215, the TWO to Cotmanhay hourly until 0315FS and the i4 to Sandiacre FS hourly until 0300

Are the 3B and 3N unique in providing 2 seperate nightbuses along unlinked parts of one day route?

Kinchbus also run at least hourly through the week between Derby and Leicester.

It may help that large parts of Derbyshire are short of taxi drivers. Nottingham had a similar shortage at about the time trentbarton introduced a lot of later services, which can't have done them any harm.

The sort of regional services they operate probably have more potential, as a taxi would be comparatively expensive. It's city night buses that have been decimated by cheap and easily booked taxis, because why wouldn't you go door to door at the time of your choosing if it'll cost the same, or even less if there's more than one person?

West Yorkshire used to have a good network - the furthest from Halifax went 12 miles. First argued that they were uneconomic, though the one I used to get used to be standing room only on a double decker at double the day fare with no season tickets accepted.

 

[Statto]

Big issue with all night routes is the cost of ruining such routes, that some are cash fares only[& even then it could be premium fares] with no day/season tickets accepted.

Until TFL was created, London night routes were cash fares/season ticket only, day travelcards & day bus passes were not valid on them, TFL got rid of the day passes restrictions when they extended validity to 04.30 the following day.

Liverpool have tried night routes mostly Saturday night/Sunday morning but withdrew them due to cost to run them & anti social behaviour on them, that only 86/86A is 24 hour route & that happens to serve the Airport & a large student area, although the night 86/86A isn't currently running because of the pandemic

 

[Bletchleyite]

Liverpool have tried night routes mostly Saturday night/Sunday morning but withdrew them due to cost to run them & anti social behaviour on them, that only 86/86A is 24 hour route & that happens to serve the Airport & a large student area, although the night 86/86A isn't currently running because of the pandemic

They also didn't make an awful lot of money, because of taxis being cheap and accessible (and Merseyrail's last departures are between 2330 and 2350 or thereabouts, which is fine for most use-cases that don't involve clubbing).

 

[cphilb]

Brighton has a fairly good night bus network - click here for map. That said, the N8/N12/N14/N29 on the map appear not to be running at the moment (guess either COVID or the map is just outdated?). The N7 and N25 offer an all-night service (hourly and half-hourly respectively), essentially making those sections of routes 7 and 25 24/7 services. The N1/N5 offer an early morning hourly service after the last route 1/5 journeys, between around 0045 and 0245.

Lothian Buses' Night Bus map (click here) appears to show a fairly comprehensive network, with many offering a 30-60 min frequency. Some are just one or two journeys, however I'm unsure if that is just post-COVID or their usual levels.

I am ever more pessimistic Brighton will ever restart the missing Night bus routes - Brighton's night time economy is at full tilt again and there's no information from Brighton about them coming back.

 

[Jordan Adam]

Many of them have been killed off by cheap and plentiful (and easy to arrange*) taxis like Uber.

* Many younger people probably don't, but memories of the old days of trying to get a black cab or phoning a minicab who could barely hear you and just said 5 minutes and you had no idea of which was yours...enough to have you running to the bus stop.

It can't come as much surprise especially when night bus services are so expensive with a single ticket often being £3+, if you're with a group of people (as many are) it's just cheaper and easier to get a taxi.

 

[Deerfold]

Transdev have confirmed their late X43s will be returning in September and will run Fridays as well as the Saturdays they used to run.

https://twitter.com/burnleybuses/status/1425705637514731521?s=19

 

[AM9]

Probably London’s only succeeds because of a huge amount of public subsidy, are any other night buses in other parts of the country subsidised?

Mainly subsidised by London businesses and residents.

 

[pitdiver]

Nottingham is good. TrentBartons Indigo and Skylink Nottingham are 24/7, and Red Arrow is 24 hours on Friday and Saturday. NCT run a night network that covers the busy bits of the city like West Bridgford, Clifton and Bulwell

The service in Nottingham itself may be good but where I live in Nottinghamshire the last bus for Mansfield at 1949 Mon-Sat and on a Sunday at 1904.

 

[Vespa]

Liverpool have tried night routes mostly Saturday night/Sunday morning but withdrew them due to cost to run them & anti social behaviour on them, that only 86/86A is 24 hour route & that happens to serve the Airport & a large student area, although the night 86/86A isn't currently running because of the pandemic

It was great when the Liverpool night buses were running as you taxis can be pricey where I'm going, also if I'm coming back from London on the last train I can catch the bus home

Now the option is to either stay out later and catch the morning bus or go to the station and wait for the first train of the day.

 

[Robertj21a]

The service in Nottingham itself may be good but where I live in Nottinghamshire the last bus for Mansfield at 1949 Mon-Sat and on a Sunday at 1904.

That's quite late enough to go to Mansfield

 

[DennisDartSLF]

Brighton and Crawley both have very good night bus services compared to other parts of the country.

----

Brighton:

The N25 (Brighton to Falmer) runs every 30 minutes on 7 nights a week. However before the corona virus started this service had operated every 10 minutes on 7 nights a week. So this is probably one of the most frequent night bus services outside of the Greater London area. At one point this service operated every 5 minutes throughout the night. I remember before the corona virus started the N25 would be packed all night long even with an every 10 minutes frequency so hopefully it will soon revert to a more frequent timetable as Brighton is certainly getting busier again.

The N7 (Brighton to Hove) also runs every 60 minutes on 7 nights a week. However before the corona virus this was every 30 minutes on 7 nights a week. There is also the N1 and N5 which run a couple of journeys a night.

I think that the Brighton & Hove routes N12 N14 N29 and Sussex Coaches route N8 that Flange Squeal mentions have all been permanently withdrawn. From speaking to drivers of both companies it seems unlikely that they will return.

----

Crawley:

The 10/20/100/200 which serve Gatwick Airport all run 7 nights a week. Before the virus they all ran every 30 minutes all night long but now they run less frequently than they used to. Also some places like Horsham no longer have a 24 hour service since the virus. I am quite surprised these services are still running on limited night timetables as the airports are getting busier again.

----

One of the good things about the Brighton and Crawley night buses is that ordinary normal daytime fares apply and all ordinary tickets are issued and accepted. So this is good as some other night bus services can charge extortionate fares.

Guildford used to have an hourly bus service all night long serving the University and Hospital and the Park Barn and Stoughton areas but it has been suspended since the virus. So now there is nothing between around 23:30 to 05:30 which seems quite poor for such a large town with a major university.

I suppose the corona virus means that it will probably take a long time to get the night bus services back to normal again. Especially with this new vaccine passport nonsense for entering nightclubs i imagine nightlife will not be as busy as it was before.

 

[pitdiver]

The service in Nottingham itself may be good but where I live in Nottinghamshire the last bus for Mansfield at 1949 Mon-Sat and on a Sunday at 1904.

Quite right. Ii try to go to Mansfield as little as possible

 

[riceuten]

Mainly subsidised by London businesses and residents.

Good, that's how it should be.

 

[Paul Jones 88]

I stayed in Maidstone a couple of years ago for work, for one month. I was quite impressed by the bus service locally. It did what I needed it to do; the bus was new with nice seats and wi-fi and the drivers were friendly and drove well.

 

[cnjb8]

Quite right. Ii try to go to Mansfield as little as possible

Definitely the same here!

 

[Polarbear]

Not sure if these count, but Bus Vannin operate a good number of "Night Owl" services across the Isle of Mann, mainly on Friday & Saturday nights. Premium fares payable (i.e. double the normal singe fare or for those holding certain passes, the normal single fare).