Night Tube services will return to the Jubilee line in May, with the Northern and Piccadilly lines resuming later in the summer, after all Night Tube services were suspended in March 2020 due to the pandemic.
Services on the Jubilee line will run throughout the night on Fridays and Saturdays from the evening of Saturday 21 May, joining the Central and Victoria lines, which resumed Night Tube services in November 2021. The return of the Jubilee line Night Tube service also provides an important interchange with Night Overground, which operates between Highbury & Islington and New Cross Gate. The Northern and Piccadilly lines will be returning to night services later this summer.
Restoring night services on these lines is helping businesses like bars, clubs and restaurants as London’s night-time economy returns to normal following the pandemic. It will also provide further safe, quick travel options for all Londoners and visitors looking to make the most of all the capital has to offer in the evenings, and those who need to travel to or from work at night.
London had 1.6m people regularly working at night before the pandemic – that is a third of the city’s workforce. The Night Tube is a safe, affordable and quick way for the people who keep London going at night to get to and from work.
Despite RMT strike action, Transport for London (TfL) is running a normal service on the Victoria line each weekend and a regular service on the Central line.
Nick Dent, London Underground’s Director of Customer Operations, said: “The return of Night Tube on the Jubilee line, along with the Piccadilly and Northern lines later in the summer, will be a boost to the night-time economy and help our customers travel around London overnight at weekends.
“London is a global destination and we are proud to be doing our part to help people to safely and enjoyably benefit from the best of its world-leading night-time economy.”
The full introduction of Night Tube services has not been possible so far as training still needs to take place to address resourcing issues on the Northern and Piccadilly lines. The return of these lines also has to be planned around complex vital operational and engineering closures. This includes the ongoing closure of the Bank branch of the Northern line to allow completion of the upgrade at Bank Tube station, as well as other major closures and bespoke timetables. Full Night Tube services will be re-introduced in the coming months.
As London has begun to emerge from the pandemic, off-peak leisure travel has been recovering more quickly than other types of journeys, indicating that there is strong demand for services that run later into the night at the weekend.
There is now regularly more than two thirds of journeys compared to before the pandemic on the Tube network on weekdays, but that has reached as high as 80 per cent at weekends, while ridership on buses is regularly at 75 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
TfL also operates an extensive night bus network along with the Night Overground to ensure everyone can travel around the capital whatever the hour. More than one hundred routes currently run through the night, while licensed and regulated taxis and private hire vehicles provide door-to-door transport at all times of the day.
The Tube continues to operate between approximately 05:30 and 00:30 through central London from Monday to Saturday, and TfL has started running some trains earlier on Sunday mornings to help customers travel at those times.
Photo credit: TfL