The First Year Of The Night Tube
This article on City AM has a title of The Night Tube has topped expectations by boosting London’s economy by £171m in its first year.
This is a paragraph that details the economic effects.
Figures released to mark the first anniversary of the service show that the Night Tube is expected to top 8m journeys this weekend – which will be 15 per cent more than forecast, and has boosted London’s economy by £171m in its first year, supporting more than 3,600 jobs.
When you consider that Friday and Saturday night running has been achieved without any visible new infrastructure, this must be considered a good result.
It’s even created a few more jobs on the Underground, so why were the unions against the concept at the start? This is detailed in this section called Strike Action in the Night Tube entry in Wikipedia.
Safety
I have been following the Night Tube and it appears the only serious overnight death on the Underground, since the Night Tube started was the death of a student on a section of the Underground, that was not part of the Night Tube.
The couple of times, I’ve used the Night Tube, most of the passengers seems to be workers going to and from their jobs. Some looked tired, but serious drunks were noticeable by their absence.
Gatwick Airport
I was going to Victoria to get the Gatwick Express to the Airport and the Night Tube certainly seemed to be becoming a popular route for catching an early flight. I even saw a couple of obvious flight crew.
Cities Outside London
Are other cities following London’s lead?
- There are grumbles on the Internet about Merseyrail’s early closure.
- Manchester Metrolink seems to close at eleven.
- The Nottingham Express Transit seems to close at Midnight.
- The Sheffield Supertram seems to run from before six in the morning until around midnight.
- Edinburgh trams seem to run until half an hour before midnight.
- The Midland Metro don’t say on the web site.
- The Newcastle Metro runs to around midnight.
- Blackpool Tramway has a last tram around one in the morning.
- The Glasgow Subway closes half an hour before midnight most days, but at six on a Sunday.
- Cardiff trains seem to shut around eleven.
Compare this to the London Underground, where the first train is generally before six and the last one is around or just after midnight.
Conclusion
The Night Tube has been good for London and it will soon be joined by the Night Overground.
With massive investment going into local transport systems in Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle, I wonder which of these cities will follow London’s example.
The Anonymous Widower 
There is quite a push around making Manchester safer late at night – Street Pastors, who hand out flip flops to young women in high shoes they can no longer walk in, and who are trained to listen to the late revellers – it is a Christian based project but they aren’t there to discuss anything remotely religious unless a person specifically asks them. There are “safe” taxi offices, and there are street alarms, which you can activate and police will come v quickly. I don’t know about trains and trams, but there is a very late bus service, it certainly comes down the A6. My daughter and her partner live close to the Manchester/Salford border, and they walk into town in the evenings, they feel safe. But late night trains and trams need to happen too.
Comment by nosnikrapzil | August 20, 2017 |
Of the fourteen bus routes near to where I live, four or five run all night, every night of the week. I live in an area, that fifty years ago, would have been like Liverpool 8, which incidentally I have lived in.
But since I moved here in 2010, there has only been one burglary and that was because the householder left his keys in the door. We probably get less street crime than say Chelsea.
The biggest problem in some ways round here are the foxes with their mess and emptying rubbish sacks looking for food.
Comment by AnonW | August 20, 2017 |