The London Underground’s Piccadilly line will resume Night Tube services this weekend, for the first time since they were suspended due to the pandemic.

Services on the Piccadilly line return on the evening of Friday 29th July and will run throughout the night on Fridays and Saturdays. The return of this line means the complete restoration of the weekend Night Tube and also the Night Overground services that were available before the pandemic.

The resumption of the Piccadilly line had been partially held up by RMT strike action over Night tube duties, but that strike is now suspended, and the escalator works at South Kensington station.

The 24-hour transport network at weekends is now back to its pre-pandemic levels of service.

The Central and Victoria lines were the first to resume operating from November 2021. This was further bolstered this summer with the return of the Jubilee and Northern lines in May and June 2022. In addition, Night Overground services between Highbury & Islington and New Cross Gate returned in December 2021.

TfL also operates a night bus network, with over one hundred routes currently running through the night and ridership on buses is regularly at 80 per cent.

Since the initial return of Night Tube services in November 2021, 3.2m entries and exits have been recorded during the nighttime rail services. In related statistics, weekday ridership on the Tube network has grown to 70 per cent of pre-pandemic levels and weekend ridership is now regularly above 85 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

Nick Dent, TfL’s Director of Customer Operations, said: “It’s great to see that our Night Tube services will be back to full strength this weekend, with the Piccadilly line Night Tube service resuming tomorrow evening. This will complete the reintroduction of all five Night Tube lines following a difficult two years.”

Plans to extend the Night Tube to the Circle/District/Met/H&S lines (the sub-surface services) are pending funding and also the completion of the major signalling upgrade that’s underway as they need the nights to do the work.

Although the RMT Night tube strike is now suspended, due to ASLEF strike action on Saturday 30th July, there will be no Night Overground service on the evening of 30th July and the early hours of 31st July.

This article was published on ianVisits

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