night tube

[Deleted]

Interesting reading about fri/sat nights 24 hour cover from 2015 on some LU lines.
There are some obvious concerns now about existing night bus routes , particularly the N5,N8, N9,N20 & N98.
The night tube is meant to dovetail with night bus routes.
TfL now need to consider if , for example, the northern line will be disgorging passengers at morden all night, then you cant just have the n155 waiting for them.
Likewise, Stanmore's N98 , Hounslow West's N9 & Hainault's N8.

So pressure and suggestions need to be made now so that at least some day routes like the 66,142,157,201,222 (at least) are working all night at least on Fri and Saturday nights to take the punters home.
Perhaps some minor frequency reductions on the n29,n73,n155 can help pay for these new routes as i would imagine passenger levels will drop considerably on parallel night bus routes currently shadowing the tube lines affected.

Before all this happens though London will have a tough time of tube strikes to contend with.

Best the bus operators keep their buses that would otherwise be withdrawn so some extras can be put out when the strikes start

[LX09FBJ]

I think a night tube is a good idea, and it eases pressure off the bus network.

However, having the Night Tube won't kill off night buses though. Frequencies however might be brought in line with the Sunday-Thursday frequencies. It may also create opportunities for more night services linking Tube stations with suburbs which don't exist.

[rambo]

Long overdue, imo.

[twobellstogo]

Nov 21, 2013 22:59:33 GMT LX09FBJ said:

I think a night tube is a good idea, and it eases pressure off the bus network.

However, having the Night Tube won't kill off night buses though. Frequencies however might be brought in line with the Sunday-Thursday frequencies. It may also create opportunities for more night services linking Tube stations with suburbs which don't exist.

Links to suburbs that don't exist? Wouldn't that be a waste of money? ( sorry! )

But back on topic : this is a good idea, however I have a feeling the proposed x15 min frequency will be inadequate...

[Deleted]

Some night routes can probably go down to sensible frequencies like the 25 and 29 which operate at 10 to 18 buses per hour.

[snoggle]

Nov 23, 2013 11:40:56 GMT @nct said:

Some night routes can probably go down to sensible frequencies like the 25 and 29 which operate at 10 to 18 buses per hour.

I wonder about that you know. If the night tube frequencies are relatively low (as suggested) then people will simply be unable to get on the trains which rather defeats the object. Also the Central Line doesn't run to Ilford or Manor Park so people will still want a bus at night and may be happier to pay just one fare rather than two (tube and then bus). I'd also make the point that the 25 and 29 load extremely heavily during the day when the tube is running every 2-3 minutes anyway. Obviously there are far more people about during the day which partly explains this but the bus service, while slower, gets people closer to where they want to be. A large slice of the 29's demand is on Green Lanes (no intermediate tube stops there) and Finsbury Park southwards where there is no tube link on the Camden Rd corridor. There is a never ending flow of people to those stops.

TfL will have a really difficult job trying to decide how to cope with the ramifications of the Night Tube. It looks lovely on paper but I'm not convinced about it despite being a potential beneficiary. The issue about people expecting connecting buses at suburban stations is also important - the current night bus structure doesn't cover what people might reasonable expect by way of connections. To take a Walthamstow example there are three fairly obvious corridors which have no night service - the W15, the Markhouse Rd corridor to Leyton and up Billet Rd (58 and 158) and possibly the 275 to Highams Park and Woodford / Barkingside. Chingford, Leyton High Road, Lea Bridge Road and part of Forest Rd are covered by existing night routes but would they all survive? I'm sceptical about the N73 continuing to run to Walthamstow if the Vic Line is running even though reasonable numbers use it on Forest Rd and Ferry Lane. I'm sure those sorts of conundrums multiply themselves all over London where the night tube will run and how long before people are demanding a Night DLR? - it's an automatic system just like nearly all the initial lines of the Night Tube will be.

The other interesting bus implication is what happens when the inevitable weekend engineering works are required. Do we get the old weekend night bus services back for 1 weekend only or do we have the delights of night Rail Replacement Services? Who'd want to be the poor soul standing at a bus stop outside a closed tube station directing the punters to a night RRS? All jolly fun to speculate about.

[Deleted]

I think the proposal as it stands needs more meat on the bone. The public will expect buses to get them home from the stations.

As a starter the day routes that operate all night on new years eve that serve the tube stations open all night should also run all night.

There are other routes , like the 440,251 & E8 will be serving night tube stations and they are the sole bus route running past them. Should these be 24 hours at weekends ?

[Deleted]

Nov 23, 2013 12:02:54 GMT snoggle said:

Nov 23, 2013 11:40:56 GMT @nct said:

Some night routes can probably go down to sensible frequencies like the 25 and 29 which operate at 10 to 18 buses per hour.

I wonder about that you know. If the night tube frequencies are relatively low (as suggested) then people will simply be unable to get on the trains which rather defeats the object. Also the Central Line doesn't run to Ilford or Manor Park so people will still want a bus at night and may be happier to pay just one fare rather than two (tube and then bus). I'd also make the point that the 25 and 29 load extremely heavily during the day when the tube is running every 2-3 minutes anyway. Obviously there are far more people about during the day which partly explains this but the bus service, while slower, gets people closer to where they want to be. A large slice of the 29's demand is on Green Lanes (no intermediate tube stops there) and Finsbury Park southwards where there is no tube link on the Camden Rd corridor. There is a never ending flow of people to those stops.

Night Tube frequencies will be at least 4 tph, and 6 tph won't be unlikely. Bear in mind a 7-car Tube train will have as much capacity as 3 double decker buses (not all punters seated granted) so even 4 tph will be a big capacity boost. For longer journeys the Tube will almost certainly offer more attractive journey times, even if it's Tube + bus to Winchmore Hill for example. A lot of night bus users, especially the club goers are on Travelcards anyway so they incur no marginal cost by switching onto the Tube. The bus will still have a market, but with the Tube running at Weekends you probably need less in the way of weekend strengthening on the inner sections - so the N29 might just run the standard 8 bph all the way for all days, since the longer distance passengers will no longer take up capacity south of Wood Green.

[Steve09]

Nov 23, 2013 19:12:34 GMT @nct said:

Nov 23, 2013 12:02:54 GMT snoggle said:

I wonder about that you know. If the night tube frequencies are relatively low (as suggested) then people will simply be unable to get on the trains which rather defeats the object. Also the Central Line doesn't run to Ilford or Manor Park so people will still want a bus at night and may be happier to pay just one fare rather than two (tube and then bus). I'd also make the point that the 25 and 29 load extremely heavily during the day when the tube is running every 2-3 minutes anyway. Obviously there are far more people about during the day which partly explains this but the bus service, while slower, gets people closer to where they want to be. A large slice of the 29's demand is on Green Lanes (no intermediate tube stops there) and Finsbury Park southwards where there is no tube link on the Camden Rd corridor. There is a never ending flow of people to those stops.

Night Tube frequencies will be at least 4 tph, and 6 tph won't be unlikely. Bear in mind a 7-car Tube train will have as much capacity as 3 double decker buses (not all punters seated granted) so even 4 tph will be a big capacity boost. For longer journeys the Tube will almost certainly offer more attractive journey times, even if it's Tube + bus to Winchmore Hill for example. A lot of night bus users, especially the club goers are on Travelcards anyway so they incur no marginal cost by switching onto the Tube. The bus will still have a market, but with the Tube running at Weekends you probably need less in the way of weekend strengthening on the inner sections - so the N29 might just run the standard 8 bph all the way for all days, since the longer distance passengers will no longer take up capacity south of Wood Green.

I would imagine that night routes that focus on following the routing of Underground services will suffer a decrease in patronage with the implementation of the 24 hour tube on Friday and Sat nights (e.g the N5 and N20).

I think its sensible to also assume there will be an increased demand for routes connecting Tube stations using routes that exist during the day but not at night. An example I would use is North Greenwich, which is the closest tube station for a large swathe of SE London, and as such one of the Bexleyheath routes would probably get converted to 24 hour (422 covers alot of areas not served currently by night routes and is only non operational during the night for four hours at the moment anyway!)

Its interesting to hear about the intention to dovetail tube arrivals at stations with the arrival and departure of buses. As traffic is almost non existant in most parts of outer London at night, it should be quite simple to do. What with improvements to technology and realtime departures this will make for a nice integrated transport system.

[snoggle]

Nov 23, 2013 16:06:23 GMT @rgd976 said:

I think the proposal as it stands needs more meat on the bone. The public will expect buses to get them home from the stations.

As a starter the day routes that operate all night on new years eve that serve the tube stations open all night should also run all night.

There are other routes , like the 440,251 & E8 will be serving night tube stations and they are the sole bus route running past them. Should these be 24 hours at weekends ?

Many years ago when "later tubes" were proposed for Friday and Saturday nights but with a later Sunday start TfL Buses created a list of services which would gain additional hours of operation to provide the suburban links people are now talking about. I used to have this potential service change listed in my database of all TfL bus services but once the proposal for the tube had "died the death" after opposition from the unions and Heathrow Airport I deleted all the detail! I don't know if I still have a very old Service Change Bulletin from way back when that would have had the details. It may also have been listed in LOTS TLB from back then - probably somewhere between 2004 and 2008 as it was a Ken Livingstone era proposal.

[overgroundcommuter]

Nov 23, 2013 9:40:05 GMT twobellstogo said:

Nov 21, 2013 22:59:33 GMT LX09FBJ said:

I think a night tube is a good idea, and it eases pressure off the bus network.

However, having the Night Tube won't kill off night buses though. Frequencies however might be brought in line with the Sunday-Thursday frequencies. It may also create opportunities for more night services linking Tube stations with suburbs which don't exist.

But back on topic : this is a good idea, however I have a feeling the proposed x15 min frequency will be inadequate...

The Northern line between Camden Town and Morden will have a 7.5 min frequency as the 4tph is per branch.