Night Buses

[Stuharris 6360]

Isn't it time that Birmingham & the Black Country got a decent night bus network. i know a few routes do operate from Birmingham, but only on a limited service.

I know that unlike London, where some night bus routes operate every 3 minutes (N29 Friday & Saturday night), we cannot expect Night Buses to operate very frequent and even 7 days a weeks, however surely a decent Friday & Saturday night network could be created.

So what routes do we think could be operated, off the top of my head

N8  Inner Circle

N9  Birmingham to Halesowen with certain journeys extended to Stourbridge

N11 Outer Circle

N37 Birmingham to Solihull

N51 Birmingham to Walsall

N74 Birmingham to West Bromwich

N97 Birmingham to Birmingham Airport

N126 Birmingham to Dudley with certain journeys extended to Wolverhampton

Sure everyone could think of more routes.

As with the Night Buses that used to operate in the 70s and 80s, a flat fare should apply on all routes!

[Sh4318]

There was a previous discussion on night buses that you might be interested in:
http://wmbusphotos.com/forum/index.php?topic=1069.msg21015#msg21015

I personally think, if night buses were to re-emerge, routes should be on main corridors, i.e. Bristol Road, Pershore Road, Washwood Heath Road, Dudley Road, Soho Road, Hagley Road, Stafford Road, Tyseley Road, Alcester Road, Walsall Road

[4006]

Why did they withdraw the original 'night services'? and what has changed since other than people are more violent, drink more and expect a bus to be a free! I would think night services are not financially viable and are more trouble than they are worth!

[Stu]

Why did they withdraw the original 'night services'?

Because of lack of use.

[NXWM Spectra]

Isn't it time that Birmingham & the Black Country got a decent night bus network. i know a few routes do operate from Birmingham, but only on a limited service.

I know that unlike London, where some night bus routes operate every 3 minutes (N29 Friday & Saturday night), we cannot expect Night Buses to operate very frequent and even 7 days a weeks, however surely a decent Friday & Saturday night network could be created.

So what routes do we think could be operated, off the top of my head

N8  Inner Circle

N9  Birmingham to Halesowen with certain journeys extended to Stourbridge

N11 Outer Circle

N37 Birmingham to Solihull

N51 Birmingham to Walsall

N74 Birmingham to West Bromwich

N97 Birmingham to Birmingham Airport

N126 Birmingham to Dudley with certain journeys extended to Wolverhampton

Sure everyone could think of more routes.

As with the Night Buses that used to operate in the 70s and 80s, a flat fare should apply on all routes!

Would you be willing to drive a bus into Birmingham at silly-o-clock in the morning?

I expect very few drivers would be willing.

[Stuharris 6360]

Would you be willing to drive a bus into Birmingham at silly-o-clock in the morning?

I expect very few drivers would be willing.
[/quote]

Why would few drivers be willing, at the end of the day how can Birmingham call itself the 2nd city if its public transport system closes down after midnight.

[Tony]

Isn't it time that Birmingham & the Black Country got a decent night bus network. i know a few routes do operate from Birmingham, but only on a limited service.

I know that unlike London, where some night bus routes operate every 3 minutes (N29 Friday & Saturday night), we cannot expect Night Buses to operate very frequent and even 7 days a weeks, however surely a decent Friday & Saturday night network could be created.

So what routes do we think could be operated, off the top of my head

N8  Inner Circle

N9  Birmingham to Halesowen with certain journeys extended to Stourbridge

N11 Outer Circle

N37 Birmingham to Solihull

N51 Birmingham to Walsall

N74 Birmingham to West Bromwich

N97 Birmingham to Birmingham Airport

N126 Birmingham to Dudley with certain journeys extended to Wolverhampton

Sure everyone could think of more routes.

As with the Night Buses that used to operate in the 70s and 80s, a flat fare should apply on all routes!

why on earth would anyone want to run the 8 24 hours? Even in its heyday BCT would never dreamed of running an NS8.

[Justin Tyme]

It's interesting that not only London but also smaller cities such as Oxford and Nottingham have 24 hour services, whereas the West Midlands doesn't.  Various attempts have been made since Deregulation, the last one being a network sensibly serving Broad Street.  Many of these services were supported by Centro, so presumably loadings were too poor to justify spending public money.

The difficulty in trying again now is that people are used to other forms of travel at the end of a night out, such as taxis and minibuses.  This being the case, I guess bus operators and Network West Midlands would want to see evidence of sufficient demand to at least partly fill buses before starting again from scratch.  Remember that just because buses run does not guarantee that they will be used!

[Stuharris 6360]

Surely an Inner and Outer Circle night service would be very useful, then passengers could catch a route from Birmingham and change onto either the N8 or N11 and more places could be served, eg: catch the N9 and change at Bearwood for the N11, making a lot more locations accessible without having to run masses of services from Birmingham.

[Tony]

Surely an Inner and Outer Circle night service would be very useful, then passengers could catch a route from Birmingham and change onto either the N8 or N11 and more places could be served, eg: catch the N9 and change at Bearwood for the N11, making a lot more locations accessible without having to run masses of services from Birmingham.

Yes you really want to be hanging around at places where you interchange with the 8 for what would probably be an hourly service.

You would be able to walk to most places the 8 serves from the City Centre quicker than catching two infrequent buses

[Stuharris 6360]

It's interesting that not only London but also smaller cities such as Oxford and Nottingham have 24 hour services, whereas the West Midlands doesn't.  Various attempts have been made since Deregulation, the last one being a network sensibly serving Broad Street.  Many of these services were supported by Centro, so presumably loadings were too poor to justify spending public money.

The difficulty in trying again now is that people are used to other forms of travel at the end of a night out, such as taxis and minibuses.  This being the case, I guess bus operators and Network West Midlands would want to see evidence of sufficient demand to at least partly fill buses before starting again from scratch.  Remember that just because buses run does not guarantee that they will be used!

London's night bus routes didn't used to be anything like they are now.

everything would start from Trafalgar Square and mostly there was an hourly service leaving the square on the hour many of them roughly following tube routes. From that little acorn a monster tree has now grown.

Now i know Birmingham could never support anything like London currently have, but as the second city i am sure that something is needed. People may be used to taxis and walking, but attitudes can be changed.

[Justin Tyme]

[London's night bus routes didn't used to be anything like they are now.

everything would start from Trafalgar Square and mostly there was an hourly service leaving the square on the hour many of them roughly following tube routes. From that little acorn a monster tree has now grown.

Now i know Birmingham could never support anything like London currently have, but as the second city i am sure that something is needed. People may be used to taxis and walking, but attitudes can be changed.

Well, never say never!  But Birmingham isn't (yet?) the 24 hour city that London is - something which along with massive funding has helped to make London's night bus network a great success.  It's difficult to see Network WM coming up with funding for a bus network attractive enough to change attitudes, not in today's austerity climate anyway.

If Birmingham does become a 24 hour city, with enough people travelling throughout the night to justify trying night buses, I imagine that the sensible place to start would be on the busiest routes, and to see how well that does before going further.

[Kevin]

Would you be willing to drive a bus into Birmingham at silly-o-clock in the morning?

I expect very few drivers would be willing.

I would (ok, granted I'd need to learn to drive first, then get a bus license and so on.... minor technicalities... ;))

[JoNi]

London Night bus routes were originally non regular services for workers such as office cleaners who had to get to work in the small hours. At one time there were suggestions that the London night bus network should be scaled down. This was in the era before late night drinking, however the tube stops before many revellers go home hence the large number of extra buses on Friday and Saturday nights. Ken Livingstone proposed to run the tube two hours later on these two nights but this floundered when unions demanded three days extra leave per annum for all drivers!

Centro ought to take the initiative in Birmingham as I doubt that NXWM would have the get up and go to do anything, after all once smartcards come in it should be easy to tender a network out.

[midlandred2003]

Well I did the 14N a few times in the early 80s and there was allways plenty of drivers prepared to do it,probably only once every 12 months.