Night service (public transport)
Night service, also known as owl service, is the public transport services operated during the night hours. These services are operated, mainly using buses but in certain cases using trams, either in addition to or in substitution for ordinary daytime services or rapid transit rail services which may shut for maintenance or due to lack of passenger volumes at night in many cities worldwide.
Night-based services may be differently branded compared to daytime services. Examples include London and Chicago, where overnight buses are prefixed with an "N" for "night". Another common way of distinguishing night services from their daytime counterparts are dark-colored line numbers. Some cities apply a different fare structure for night services from their daytime services.
Characteristics
, continuous rapid transit operation is practiced in some cities, most notably the subway in New York City, which essentially renders night services unneeded. Many of New York City's buses also have 24-hour operation; and around the world, night services may be provided by virtue of 24-hour services on daytime routes, as does Berlin on its "Metrotram" routes.Where they exist, night service is generally much more limited in geographic coverage than daytime services, with fewer lines and routes over entirely different paths to daytime services; routes serving more stops than during the daytime; or the night terminus may be in a different place. Networks may run longer routes than daytime services, sometimes combining two or more daytime routes, which may use interchanges to reach the same outlying districts. Night services usually also run less frequently. For example, according to the New York City Transit Authority's Service Guidelines Manual, New York City buses are required to operate at least every 30 minutes all times except late nights. Local bus frequencies during late night times are required to operate at least every 60 minutes.
Because of much longer intervals between services than during the day, night routes often offer guaranteed transfers to other lines or transit modes. To ease planning, many cities use a central hub where all lines converge at a specific time. This makes the line map of many night services look like a wheel with radial lines to the center and some additional lines connecting the outer ends.
List
Africa
Please expand the listAsia
China
- Beijing: 夜1-38 Night The prefix 夜, meaning "night", denotes buses serving the urban core and some of the larger suburbs that run from 23:20 to 4:50. Their number scheme is distinct from other buses, such that Bus 夜26 follows a different route from Beijing Bus 26. 夜10, 夜20, 夜30 are loop lines.
- Hong Kong: Night buses are often, but not always prefixed with the letter N and operated by all franchised bus companies.
- Macau: TCM operates night service public buses across Macau, Taipa, and Coloane in seven routes. Such totes have prefix 'N'.
- Shanghai:Line numbers between 300 and 399 are night buses.
India
- Kolkata: It is the first city in Indian Subcontinent to have night service buses and trams. It has night service buses and trams operated by WBTC mainly from major stations and airport to hospitals and various parts of the city. The vehicles are numbered "NS" indicating night service followed by route number. Currently 15 routes exist.
- Pune: Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited operates night buses from Katraj, Shivajinagar, Pune Station and Hadapsar bus depots. Currently it operates such services on 9 routes. The services are named "ratrani", meaning "night".
- Bengaluru: Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation operates Vayu Vajra buses in route 'KIAS 9' from Kempegowda International Airport to Kempegowda Bus Station outside Bengaluru City Railway Station. It also operates night service buses on other routes from 11:00 pm to 5:00 am. Night Buses have a one and half the Times more fare than normal buses.
- New Delhi: Delhi Transport Corporation operates whole night bus service 'Express 4' to and from Indira Gandhi International Airport terminal 2 to I.S.B.T Kashmere Gate. It also operates night service bus on 28 other routes. Buses have the prefix 'O'.
- Vasai-Virar: Vasai-Virar Municipal Transport operates night service buses on 4 routes of day service buses.
- Chennai: Metropolitan Transport Corporation operates night service buses on 34 routes all across the city.
- Hyderabad: Telangana State Road Transport Corporation operates buses on 35 routes post 9 p.m. with 93 trips. Soon such services would be increased.
Malaysia
- Kuala Lumpur: KTM Komuter operates night service trains on
- Seremban Line between and
- Port Klang Line between Port Klang station and KL Sentral
- line between KL Sentral and station adjacent to Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport Terminal 3
Singapore
- SBS Transit operates night service buses on 6 routes with suffix 'N from Marina Centre Bus Terminal.
- SMRT Buses operates night services on 8 routes with prefix 'NR'.
Europe
France
- Paris: Noctilien buses Paris has 48 routes in service 24/7.
Germany
- Munich: Round the clock - every day. From every pub, disco, theatre and cinema, the MVG Nightlines will take you home safely all night long - to nearly every destination in Munich.
- *Mid-week: On nights before working days the four night tram lines N16, N19, N20 and N27 as well as the night busses N40 - N45 are in service. Every hour between 1.30 a.m. and 4.30 a.m. all night tram lines and the night busses N40 and N41 meet for 5 minutes at the interchange station Karlsplatz where passengers can change to any other night line.
- *On weekends: On the nights before Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays these same services run every half hour! That means they then meet every 30 minutes at the interchange station Karlsplatz. Additionally, every half hour the night busses N72 - N79 operate - every hour the night busses N80 and N81. Shortly after 2 a.m. late night suburban trains still run to almost all stations in the area.
- Frankfurt: the S8/S9 line of the Rhine-Main S-Bahn system has a 24/7 service through the Citytunnel with a 30 minutes frequency between 1.00AM and 4.30AM from Frankfurt Flughafen Regionalbahnhof to Konstablerwache and a 60 minutes frequency between 00.49AM and 3.49AM from Wiesbaden Hbf and Hanau Hbf.
- Koln: the S19 of the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn system has a 24/7 service between Duren and Hennef for 17 stations including Cologne Hbf and Cologne/Bonn Airport.
- Hanover: the S5 of the Hanover S-Bahn system has a 24/7 service from Hannover Hauptbahnhof to Hannover Flughafen.
Great Britain
- London: The Night Tube is a service pattern on the London Underground and London Overground systems which provides night-time services to travellers on Friday and Saturday nights on the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly, and Victoria lines, and a short section of the London Overground’s East London line.
Turkey
- İstanbul
- İzmir
Oceania
Australia
- Melbourne: Night Network is Melbourne's weekend overnight public transport system. It comprises all of Melbourne's regular electric railway lines, six tram lines, 21 night bus services, and four regional coach services. The night bus services replaced the previous NightRider services, with 10 operating radial from the CBD and the remaining 11 operating from suburban railway stations.
- Sydney: NightRide, also Nightride, is a network of bus routes in operation between midnight and 4.30 am in Sydney, Australia. The fourteen routes are run by bus operators as listed below and allow for a nightly shutdown of the Sydney Trains commuter rail network. The operators of such services are Hillsbus, Punchbowl Bus Company, Transdev and State Transit Authority. Transport for NSW also advertises various other routes as late night or Night Owl services, the latter in Newcastle.
North America
Canada
- Toronto: The Blue Night Network is the overnight public transit service operated by the Toronto Transit Commission in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The network consists of a basic grid of 27 bus and 4 streetcar routes, distributed so that almost all of the city is within 2 km of at least one route. It is the largest and most frequent night network in North America
United States of America
- Chicago: Red and Blue Lines of the Chicago "L"
- Delaware Valley: PATCO Speedline
- New York metropolitan area: Most transit systems, including the New York City Subway, Staten Island Railway, Port Authority Trans-Hudson, Long Island Rail Road, AirTrain JFK, Staten Island Ferry, MTA Regional Bus Operations
- Miami: Route 246 & Route 500
- San Francisco Bay Area: All Nighter Bus Network
- New Orleans: The streetcars and many busses run 24 hours.
South America
Brazil
- Rio de Janeiro: Rio Onibus, Rio de Janeiro. The public Bus is a good way to move around the city while it’s not the rush hour or late at night. Buses are identified by a number that refers to the bus route and a destination on its front sign. Also a “BRS” number that indicates which bus points the bus stops at. Due to the enormous number of buses running in Rio, the bus points are classified by a BRS number and different buses stop at different bus points with the same BRS number.
Argentina
- Buenos Aires: Colectivo Bus has over 100 routes in service 24/7 with a night frequency of at least 30 minutes.
In popular culture
- London night buses were the inspiration for the Knight Bus found in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter book and film series.
- The Chicago Surface Lines owl service was mentioned in a number of poems by Carl Sandburg:
- *"Old Woman" : "The owl-car clatters along, dogged by the echo..."
- *"Blue Island Intersection" : "The owl car blutters along in a sleep-walk."
- *"Nights Nothings Again" : "A taxi whizzes by, an owl car clutters, passengers yawn reading street signs..."
- In act II, scene 2 of the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire, Mitch tells Blanche how he'll get home: "I'll walk over to Bourbon and catch an owl-car."
- The 1997 Swedish film Nattbuss 807 depicts an incident in a night bus.
- A 2007 Italian noir-comedy film directed by Davide Marengo was entitled Night Bus.
- The Randy Travis song "Three Wooden Crosses" depicts a night bus travel.