Wright Eclipse Gemini bodied
Volvo B7TL on route N11 in July 2014
Scania OmniCity on route N9 in October 2013 The first night bus was introduced in 1913. By 1920 there were two 'All Night Bus Services' in operation named the 94 and 94a running from 23:30 to 05:30. A few more services were introduced over the following decades, but all ceased during
World War II. Services resumed after the war, increasing as
trams and
trolleybuses were replaced in the late 1950s and 1960s. In 1978 London Transport listed 21 all-night bus routes. On many of these routes, "all-night" service meant a departure frequency of no more than one bus an hour. In April 1984, the number of routes was increased from 21 to 32. At this point the peak service required 80 buses; by August 2013 this had grown to 890. Originally the night bus network had its own fare structure, but with the introduction of the
Oyster card in 2003, it was incorporated into the
Transport for London fare structure. Until the mid-2000s, all routes had
N prefixes. However, as some routes merely mirrored their day time equivalents, the
N prefixes were dropped and these routes became 24-hour services; for example, route N14 was no longer differentiated from
route 14. With some
London Underground lines operating a
24-hour service at weekends from August 2016, a further eight routes commenced 24-hour operation on Friday and Saturday nights. Further changes were made as the Night Tube network expanded. In May 2015, the Night Bus network was the subject of
The Night Bus, a
Channel 4 documentary. ==Operation==