Night Buses

[Tony]

Night buses is always a funny one.  For the main routes the first buses are running at 4/5 in the morning which is the perfect time for the clubbers leaving town.

It would perhaps only need some additional early sunday morning services on the main corridors to satisfy demand.

Yes, back before deregulation the last daytime bus from City was 11pm and the first night service was 12 midnight (usually full especially Friday and Saturday).

After deregulation many services had their last bus pushed back to 12 midnight making the 1am bus the first night service. After that it was a downhill spiral to no night bus services!

First night bus (with night service fares) was always 11:32 from City, this was always operated using a bus that had been out all evening. A seperate bus and driver would then come out of garage on increased pay to operate journeys at 00:02; 01:02; 02:02; 03:02; 04:02  and 05:02 from City and 00:32; 01:32; 02:32; 03:32 & 04:32 from the outer terminus. The daytime service would then take over again. The exception was Saturday night/Sunday morning when the night service bus stayed out for two hours longer

[Stuharris 6360]

Night buses is always a funny one.  For the main routes the first buses are running at 4/5 in the morning which is the perfect time for the clubbers leaving town.

It would perhaps only need some additional early sunday morning services on the main corridors to satisfy demand.

Yes, back before deregulation the last daytime bus from City was 11pm and the first night service was 12 midnight (usually full especially Friday and Saturday).

After deregulation many services had their last bus pushed back to 12 midnight making the 1am bus the first night service. After that it was a downhill spiral to no night bus services!

First night bus (with night service fares) was always 11:32 from City, this was always operated using a bus that had been out all evening. A seperate bus and driver would then come out of garage on increased pay to operate journeys at 00:02; 01:02; 02:02; 03:02; 04:02  and 05:02 from City and 00:32; 01:32; 02:32; 03:32 & 04:32 from the outer terminus. The daytime service would then take over again. The exception was Saturday night/Sunday morning when the night service bus stayed out for two hours longer

And wasn't the route generally around 25 minutes long, so only one driver was required all night?

[Kevin]

Night buses is always a funny one.  For the main routes the first buses are running at 4/5 in the morning which is the perfect time for the clubbers leaving town.

You say that, if you're out clubbing on saturday night (the usual busy night for most places) you'd struggle for the first bus home, usually about 7 on a sunday morning

.... thats why i usually end up walking

[Dylan4579]

Diamond already do quite a lot of night work, maybe they could just extend hours

With non screened buses and a cash bag no chance any drivers would be stupid enough to do it and it failed for them before.

Yeah, they could just renovate the buses to be drunk-proof, and I'm suggesting just extend hours of evening and Sunday routes. 
 

[swifty]

Just had a Fantastic Idea!!!!

Use the Miller St Graveyard as the Night Bus Depot and instead of using Brand New Fleet for Night Services, use the fleet of Crappy B6's, that way no one would be able to tell that they had been trashed running round the Night Services and the only people who would see them would be too P***ed to care lol  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Kevin]

Just had a Fantastic Idea!!!!

Use the Miller St Graveyard as the Night Bus Depot and instead of using Brand New Fleet for Night Services, use the fleet of Crappy B6's, that way no one would be able to tell that they had been trashed running round the Night Services and the only people who would see them would be too P***ed to care lol  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

You say that, I struggle with b6's at the best of times, id imagine trying to squeeze myself into one of the seats drunk would hurt

[horsencart]

I spent a few hours  on the night call bus in my misspent youth years, having spent a great deal of money in the city ale houses, and night clubs  making my way trying to walk in a straight line stopping to buy a hot dog with a roll that have the same taste of cotton wool,

The night  buses would arrive at their pick up points Bull St, Colmore  Row,  and others shortly before 12 o'clock  or 1 o'clock  etc, ect, etc, we the passengers would in our own way would drunkenly  board the bus,  and pay our 50p  the bus normally would be a Fleetline,  on the hour an inspector would emerge from lewis,s  doorway (a department store ) he would of course be wearing his B.C.T. or W.M.P.T.E.  inspectors hat and mac,

At the appointed hour he would blow on his whistle and then about half a dozen buses would depart as one,all over Brum buses would be  heading away from the city,  normally leaving those to far gone or courting couples in the doorway with a wait for the same bus to come back in an hours time, the journey on the bus was spent in my case a fit full doze, thankfully I would get off at the terminus so not much chance of missing my bus stop and then stumble home,

All of this was at a time when I could only ever hope to pass my test or even  to own a car,   

     

[Liverpool Street]

I spent a few hours  on the night call bus in my misspent youth years, having spent a great deal of money in the city ale houses, and night clubs  making my way trying to walk in a straight line stopping to buy a hot dog with a roll that have the same taste of cotton wool,

The night  buses would arrive at their pick up points Bull St, Colmore  Row,  and others shortly before 12 o'clock  or 1 o'clock  etc, ect, etc, we the passengers would in our own way would drunkenly  board the bus,  and pay our 50p  the bus normally would be a Fleetline,  on the hour an inspector would emerge from lewis,s  doorway (a department store ) he would of course be wearing his B.C.T. or W.M.P.T.E.  inspectors hat and mac,

At the appointed hour he would blow on his whistle and then about half a dozen buses would depart as one,all over Brum buses would be  heading away from the city,  normally leaving those to far gone or courting couples in the doorway with a wait for the same bus to come back in an hours time, the journey on the bus was spent in my case a fit full doze, thankfully I would get off at the terminus so not much chance of missing my bus stop and then stumble home,

All of this was at a time when I could only ever hope to pass my test or even  to own a car,   

   

Damn pissheads!!  ;)

[danny]

That story made me smile, all me and mates do is end up standing arroud waiting for an 7 seater some of us more sober than others :)

[Kevin]

Ok, perhaps a good point to re-ignite the debate......

Watching the recent "Routmasters" program about road transport in London, and in particular the one about the night buses, I always assumed London always had such a network of night buses, but apparently not. They started with a handful of routes and it has steadily grown to the insane level it is now, with some routes even running to similar insane frequencies as daytime services, presumably because they never imagined the demand to be there. Now the demand has been met, with services from central London out towards the suburbs, from Heathrow out to various nearby places and, perhaps more importantly, routes that go nowhere near either of them. People can use the excuse "London is a 24hour city and Birmingham isn't" to justify us not having nightbuses here, but for example, looking at a recent bus route map of South East London, Croydon has 24hour bus routes going to various nearby places.... How is Croydon worthy of that and Birmingham isn't?

Hopefully, the hourly 97 will prove a success and they'll see sense to gradually up the frequency and add other worthy routes. But I suppose that makes too much sense....

[vinh1000]

Got a question?

Because 97 run 24 hours, do you have to pay additional fares as passes say it isn't valid for night services? (old N services)

[Gareth]

Passes are valid and daysavers are valid up until 5am(I think) with the previous days date. In effect a daysaver on the 97 is valid for 29hours.

[vinh1000]

Passes are valid and daysavers are valid up until 5am(I think) with the previous days date. In effect a daysaver on the 97 is valid for 29hours.

5am?
wow
this means I could easily get my local bus into town which departs 4:49 from where I am :P

[Tony]

Passes are valid and daysavers are valid up until 5am(I think) with the previous days date. In effect a daysaver on the 97 is valid for 29hours.

5am?
wow
this means I could easily get my local bus into town which departs 4:49 from where I am :P

Only valid until 5am on the 97, on all other routes it is until end of service, ie around midnight

[Gareth]

I meant to say in my post that it was for the 97 only.