More night services for London Buses, but Night Tube is postponed

TFL have just released their consultation update in which they received 3,300 responses from members of the public and 40 responses from Stakeholders.

They have received overwhelming support for extended night bus services which means that TFL will introduce new services in phases.

From 12 September 2015, we will introduce the following service improvements:

·         More buses in South East London as part of changes to routes 188, N1, N47 and N381, the introduction of a night service on route 47, and new nightly route N199

·         The extension of route N133 from Mitcham to Morden seven nights a week

·         New night services on routes 222 and 238, seven nights a week

·         A Friday and Saturday night service on routes 132, 154 and 486

It's interesting to see that London Buses are starting off the phased introduction on services from South of London.

TFL have also produced their reports in PDF formats.

^{More details about their changes from 12th September 2015.}

Link to Consultation report on the current changes

And their responses to the main issues raised

In the 2^nd document, I scrolled down to the section titled “Ward councillors who received an email informing them of a letter drop to residents.” It’s quite bizarre that none of the councillors from Havering Council have taken part in the consultation to extend more night bus services to the Havering Borough. Despite London Buses Routes N15, N86, 128 and 365 serving Romford at night. So it’s disappointing that Central Line users from Romford will have to use the N86 from Stratford instead of the proposed 296 bus from Newbury Park station.

I also noticed in the same document that the Stakeholder “ASPRA – Addiscombe and Shirley Park Residents’ Association” suggested that London Buses route X26 should continue service at night because the route links to Heathrow Airport from Croydon.

In other news, talks between the London Underground Unions and TFL board have led to the ‘Night Tube’ service being postponed.

From TFL’s press release

As LU has always made clear, the Night Tube will not be introduced on this date at any cost to fare and tax payers.

As a result, and following two weeks of constructive talks with trade unions which led to the suspension of this week's planned strikes, LU has decided to defer the launch to allow for the successful conclusion of those talks and agreement that delivers the Night Tube this Autumn, and avoids any further strike action.

LU Managing Director, Nick Brown, said: 'Further to the progress made in recent days with the trade unions and the suspension of strike action, we believe we are not far from an agreement that protects the work-life balance of our employees and is affordable, sustainable and fair.

'As such, we have decided to defer the introduction of Night Tube to allow more time for those talks to conclude. Our objective is to reach an agreement that ends this dispute and delivers the Night Tube for Londoners this Autumn.'

At least the extra night bus services are still going ahead, even though the Night Tube issue is still complicated between the TFL Board and London Underground Unions. And remember, London Underground is one of the largest rapid transit systems in the world covering 250 miles/402km. It is also the world’s oldest rapid transit system which began operation on 10th January 1863.

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Image Attribution

"Arriva London North bus LT207 (LTZ 1207), route N38, 27 May 2014 (2)" by Au Morandarte from London, Middlesex, England - Nightly Boris. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arriva_London_North_bus_LT207_(LTZ_1207),_route_N38,_27_May_2014_(2).jpg#/media/File:Arriva_London_North_bus_LT207_(LTZ_1207),_route_N38,_27_May_2014_(2).jpg