Staying with Hull, and Stagecoach's operations therein, the city is to receive it's first-ever 24-hour service, operating through the small hours on Friday night/Saturday morning and Saturday night/Sunday morning. For the fifth largest city in the UK, is a 24/7 service not long overdue for Hull? We think so.There are night buses that operate until 3am over the weekend, though extended operations on Service 51 (city centre-Bransholme, numbered N51) and an extension to Service 2 (city centre-Hessle, numbered N2) are the first 24/7 services operated by Stagecoach in the city. Stagecoach are heralding the new dawn as a result of Hull's promotion to the football Premier League.
Will they survive? We can only hope so. Stagecoach will need to be prepared for potential loss-making services in the short-term, while people realise they can choose the bus over the taxi, and that assuming Stagecoach's market research has been done correctly, it would seem very perverse that such a large city's population should shun a 24-hour service.
It's interesting to note that London's night bus PVR is greater than the daytime PVR of Stagecoach Grimsby-Cleethorpes!
