On 13 Sep, 21:20, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 19:57:25 +0100, Roy Badami
wrote:

On 13/09/10 19:31, Mizter T wrote:

How well the night bus network will hold up after the October spending
review and seemingly inevitable cut to TfL's - well, we shall see. The
infamous N213 twixt Croydon to Sutton already got the chop last year.

The 236 is rumoured to be losing its all night service due to lack of
patronage.

It is worth considering that Walthamstow's most frequent bus service is
the weekend N38 which runs every 6 minutes. No day route runs that
frequently.

In addition when the 29/N29 goes double deck the night service will be
more frequent than the day service! *Having been insane enough to
venture into the night to snap some night buses I can confirm that the
network is surprisingly busy and often in places where you would not
expect it. *Needless to say, though, the N29 is crazily busy - certainly
more people crammed in than during the day.

I take it then that by implication the night bus service runs at a loss,
despite your comment that it is well patronized?

I think a fair few people would argue that a subsidy of £700m a year
demonstrates that the whole bus network "runs at a loss". *LRT got to
the point where the bus network almost broke even but services were
worse, vehicles were shoddy and the whole thing just felt "exhausted".
The buses had lots of pretty liveries though ;-)

I am sure large parts of the London Bus network could run profitably but
not at current fare levels nor with the current concessions. In addition
you'd have the nonsense of 300 buses chasing business on the 38 or 73
and absolutely no buses on routes like the 146, 347 or W10.

What was the N213's claim to infamy?

Mr Figgis to the Night Owl shaped telephone ....... *paging Mr Figgis
...

In short the N213 ran between Kingston and Croydon via Sutton. Both
centres provide good levels of night bus patronage - Kingston
especially. *I think it was as a result of the normal retendering cycle
that the Croydon to Sutton section of the N213 was removed as part of
the retendering of the 213. The result was that the 213 (Kingston -
Sutton) became a 24 hour service. *When the route was withdrawn it left
something of a hole in the South London night bus network and there was
quite a vigorous campaign to get it reinstated. *The main proponents
were the younger users of the route and there was a Facebook page and
all the "new media" bells and whistles that you'd expect from bright
young people who can work Facebook and mobile phones.

To be honest I can't recall quite why Mr Figgis is quite so incensed
about this route withdrawal but I'll given him 11/10 for doggedness in
reminding us about the loss of the route. *To be fair it is a stupid
link to lose as it is both a busy bus and train corridor in the day time
and there is plenty of night time activity on the corridor to be able to
sustain a night service. *Other parts of the night bus network probably
have less justification and patronage - the 83 and 474 are two that
spring to mind and the 264 was featured strongly as having 2 passengers
a night when the Gilligoon used to write inflammatory crap in the
Evening Standard.
--
Paul C

And in Walthamstow, the 58 used to have an all night service, but that
was withdrawn a few years ago due to low levels of patronage.

I live very near to the W15 bus route in Walthamstow. Until last
year, the last bus from Walthamstow towards Hackney used to leave at
just after midnight. Then a new timetable was introduced with a bus
at 00:15 and 00:30. I would like to know the reason for these extra
buses - is there that much demand for late night transport between
Walthamstow, Leyton, Leytonstone and Hackney?

The general point is that whilst it is nice to have extra buses and
more frequent services, there has to be a justification in terms of
passenger numbers or place served (eg. a hospital with an A&E dept)
Money does not grow on trees, and I think we could see some thinning
out of London bus services post October 20th.