The new night bus network arrives in Madrid with 15-minute frequencies, a circular line and more fleet, reaching 205 ‘owls’, within the framework of the electoral commitment of the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida.
This week the councilor presented the new design of the municipal night bus network. It represents a 39% increase in bus provision during weekends, as well as the launch of almost 58 additional kilometers of service.
Starting last Wednesday, the Madrid Municipal Transport Company will carry out a major restructuring of the nighttime municipal bus network, which brings with it three major milestones.
These are the reduction of the frequency of passage to 15 minutes with a greater provision of buses on weekends (starting this Friday, December 1) and the creation of a new circular night line. In addition, the route of eight “owl” lines will be expanded.
Starting this Friday, the EMT will reinforce the provision of buses during the weekends, going from the 148 buses that currently circulate to 205, that is, almost 39% more fleet.
With this allocation, EMT meets the objective that the passage interval of its entire network of lines on weekends is 15 minutes. Until now, 57% of Madrid’s night lines had a scheduled frequency of 20 minutes; 35% in 15 minutes, and two lines (N27 and N28) had a passage interval of 35 minutes.
The new night circular line has a route very similar to the daytime circulars C1 and C2. It presents a variation with respect to them: the southern headwaters will be located in Atocha instead of the traditional headwaters in Embajadores. The second header will continue to be located in Cuatro Caminos.
One of the characteristics of this “owl” is that it will connect with all night lines. In total, the length of the night circular will be 35,910 meters: 8,136 in direction 1 of the equivalent to the daytime C1 and 9,684 in direction 2.
For its part, when covering the daytime C2 route it will reach 9,999 meters in direction 1 and 8,091 in direction 2. The frequency of passage established for the nighttime circular is 35 minutes on weekdays and 15 minutes on weekends.
This action by EMT on the night bus network also means that a total of 8 “owl” lines will adapt and extend their itineraries.
The eight lines with an improved and reinforced route are the N3 (Cibeles-Canillas), N4 (Cibeles-Barajas), N8 (Cibeles-Valdebernardo), N11 (Cibeles-Madrid Sur), N15 (Cibeles-Orcasur), N18 (Cibeles -Aluche), N22 (Cibeles-Barrio del Pilar), N28 (Moncloa-Aravaca).
The implementation of the night service in Madrid took place on October 1, 1974 in order to cover the needs of many users forced to travel at dawn for work reasons, and also many others motivated by nightlife.
The network was born under the term ‘Night Circuit’, which was composed, in its beginnings, of a total of 11 lines from nerve centers of Madrid, such as Callao, Sol and Cibeles, to peripheral areas that had grown considerably such as Canillejas, Hortaleza , Vallecas town, San Cristóbal de los Ángeles or Fuencarral, among others.
Currently, Madrid has a night bus system made up of 28 lines, to which the circular NC1 and NC2 will now be added. It is the Spanish city with the highest number of night routes, followed by Valencia, with 23, and Barcelona, ??with 20.
Last year, the Madrid night network transported 4,865,257 passengers and accumulated a total of 451,558 kilometers throughout the year, with the strongest lines of the network being the N21 (Cibeles-Lacoma), the N5 (Cibeles-Ciudad Pegaso ) and the N18 (Cibeles-Aluche).
