MARK CURRAN, Sponsor – Night Tube with London Underground, describes the challenge of introducing a 24-hour service
Night Tube is London Underground’s brand given to the operation of services all night on Friday and Saturday nights on the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria Lines. Night Tube was the result of a routine review of demand changes across London’s transport.
The demand for travel on the Underground after 22.00 is growing twice as fast as the all-day average, with Friday and Saturday night being substantially busier than the rest of the week. What was more revealing though was that between 2000 and 2013, demand for Night Buses had grown almost three-fold: the London Night Bus network operates about 1,000 buses at weekends. The single busiest route (the N29) operates 18 buses an hour, and the busiest roads have a bus more than every two minutes overnight. Demand profiles on Night Buses suggested that any extension to Underground operating hours should be all night and not just extended hours, which was considered back in 2007.
In late 2012 London Underground was also reviewing its procedures for accessing the railway for maintenance works. Revised access rules and use of new …
