London-London’s Night Tube service will launch on August 19 on Fridays and Saturdays after a delay caused by union protests, Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced.
“Our latest statistics show that more than half of underground travelers use the system after 10:00 pm,” a spokesman for Transport for London (TfL) told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
“That’s why providing the night service over the weekend is an experience aimed at satisfying London’s residents and tourists,” said the spokesman.
“We are planning to widen the service of the Night Tube to include all days of the week if the current step succeeds,” he said.
This way London will be the third city in the world after New York and Berlin to operate a 24 hour metro.
A train will pass approximately every 10 minutes on Friday and Saturday nights.
The metro service currently stops at 1:00 am in the weekend and at midnight the rest of the week.
Following the start of Central and Victoria line services on August 19, night time service on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines will follow in two separate phases later in the autumn, said the spokesman.
The all-night Tube was due to start on five lines at weekends on September 12, 2015, but was beset by delays amid a campaign of staff strike action.
“After several strikes and a series of protests organized by workers who were rejecting to work additional hours, those having to work longer hours and during the night were compensated,” said the spokesman, adding that “around 200 part-time drivers are taking part in a training program to join the night crew.”
London’s Underground is the oldest metro network in the world and one of the longest. It started functioning on July 10, 1863 when the Metropolitan Railway opened between Paddington and Farringdon.
In the early years of the metro steam locomotives were used. Although Londoners call it the Underground or the Tube, 55 percent of the network, which is 240 miles long, lies above ground.
London’s metro currently serves 270 stations and has around 1.34 billion commuters annually.