Somewhat unexpectedly, the Night Tube has its own official website at nighttube.london. It's not aimed at you and me, it's aimed at TfL staff, seemingly as part of a drive to keep employees engaged. But it's beautifully designed, and very mobile-friendly, and packed full of information. Here are 20 facts about the Night Tube you might not have known.
1) "Becky, named after Harry Beck, the designer of the world famous Tube map, is the endearing owl which will appear on all signage and way finding to indicate Night Tube services." 2) When customers first enter a station, Night Tube maps and Night Tube pocket Tube maps will be available. A step-free guide to Night Tube will be provided (separately) for passengers with restricted mobility. 3) Ticket halls in the vast majority of stations served by Night Tube will display either the new Night Tube map or a smaller adapted ‘night’ version. 4) A typical tube carriage contains 12 car line diagrams. A proportion of these diagrams will become "a distinct, yet discreet, Night Tube version with a similar look and feel to the Night Tube maps." 5) Signage at station exits may be changed "to move the flow of customers in the safest and most efficient way" overnight. 6) With the launch of Night Tube, stations will move to a standardised travel day which starts at 04:30 and finishes at 04:29 the following day. If you have a paper ticket it will expire at 04:29 (but if you've already started your Night Tube journey by then, that's fine). 7) A team of Customer Experience testers has been out overnight with Oyster cards and contactless payment cards, touching in and out to simulate different journeys, to test out necessary upgrades to the ticketing system. 8) There are currently no plans for Revenue Control Inspectors to patrol the network overnight, but this will be "under constant revision". 9) More than 100 police officers will be out on visible patrol across the Night Tube network, including a permanent presence at key stations. 10) Over 13,000 CCTV cameras will be watching the Night Tube (which'll either make you feel reassuringly safe or wildly over-scrutinised). For example, Stanmore has 62 CCTV cameras, Camden Town has 75, Shepherd's Bush has 91 and Leicester Square has 117. 11) To limit the number of trains taken out of service, cleaning teams will be strategically placed along Night Tube lines, or on call, to intercept trains where a spillage has occurred so that they can board and clean these on the move. 12) No routine announcements will be made overnight at stations located above ground level, where there is the potential for householders to be disturbed. Where these stations still have older information systems which do not tell customers when the next train is due, "station staff will need to add manual information to the system." 13) At interchange stations which serve fewer lines overnight than during the day, announcements are likely to be made for the first few months after launch, explaining details to customers. 14) On every Night Tube line (apart from the Central), onboard automated announcements will be amended "to ensure customers are not needlessly confused by being told about lines that are not operating." 15) Twenty new Night Bus services will operate, but there will be fewer extra buses at weekends on 15 routes. 16) North Greenwich, Vauxhall, Canada Water, Stratford and London Bridge bus stations will be staffed 24 hours a day (in addition to those bus stations which already are). 17) After Night Tube begins, "maintenance schedules will make much better use of Sunday evenings than they do presently." 18) It was never planned to run the Night Tube on Boxing Day this year (even though it's a Saturday). 19) "There is very little or no evidence of demand for travel on the Emirates Airline routes overnight. However, we will continue to review the changes in our customers travel patterns after we start running Night Tube and respond to our customer's needs if the situation alters." (I love the apostrophe there) 20) The Night Tube marketing campaign begins on 22 July, and Night Tube begins on 12 September (ah, so the website's more than a bit out of date).
