The Night Tube, which currently runs on the Central and Victoria lines will be joined by the Jubilee line from the evening of Saturday 21 May 2022.
The Night Tube was suspended due to the pandemic and partially resumed on the Central and Victoria lines last November. Transport for London has now confirmed that the Jubilee line will resume services next month. 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.
Under the terms of the current funding settlement with the government, restoring the Night Tube on the Jubilee line would have required prior approval from the Department for Transport.
London Underground says that it expects to resume Night Tube services on the Northern and Piccadilly lines later in the summer.
Although much of the focus on the resumption of the Night Tube is on London’s nightlife, a substantial percentage of people who travel at night do so for necessity or work reasons, such as early departures to get to airports for flights, or cleaners and warehouse staff getting to their overnight shifts. These people have also suffered from the loss of the Night Tube with longer and slower journeys in the early hours getting to and from work.
There is however ongoing RMT strike action every weekend on the Night Tube, and those are currently due to carry on every weekend until June 2022. However, despite the strike action, TfL says that it is still able to run a normal service on the Victoria line each weekend and only minor disruptions 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.”
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 operational and engineering closures, particularly related to the Bank tube station upgrade.
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