London Buses route 486

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486
Wright Eclipse Gemini 2
Peak vehicle requirementDay: 14
Night: 3
PredecessorsRoute M1
Route M2
Night-time24-hour service
Route
StartBexleyheath Shopping Centre
ViaWelling
Shooter's Hill
Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Charlton
EndNorth Greenwich bus station
Length12 miles (19 km)
Service
Level24-hour service
FrequencyDaytime: About every 8-15 minutes
Night-time: About every 30 minutes
Operates24-hour service

London Buses route 486 is a Transport for London contracted bus route in London, England. Running between North Greenwich bus station and Bexleyheath Shopping Centre, it is operated by Go-Ahead London.

History

M1

London Central East Lancs Myllennium bodied DAF SB220, originally used on the M1 service, in October 2005

The

third millennium, with construction beginning in 1997 intending to help regenerate the industrialised Greenwich Peninsula. The construction of the Dome on the former site of the East Greenwich Gas Works, involving the use of land reclamation, was also supplemented with the building of the nearby Greenwich Millennium Village, both planned to be served by the London Underground's Jubilee Line Extension to Stratford via Canary Wharf. London Buses route 108, which uniquely ran through the Blackwall Tunnel, became the first London bus route to serve the Millennium Dome when it was rerouted from 21 November 1998, serving Dome staff and construction workers through stopping in a secure area within the site.[1][2]

When the Millennium Dome opened as a visitor attraction on 1 January 2000, shuttle services M1 and M2 were launched to transport visitors from south-east London, provided by

Greenwich railway stations respectively as part of the 'Millennium Transit' system. Seventeen East Lancs Myllennium single-deck buses on DAF SB220 chassis were delivered for use on the services in late 1999, which were equipped with air conditioning as well as power-operated destination blinds and audiovisual announcements, which would subsequently be rolled out to new London buses from the mid-2000s onwards. Three of the buses were also LPG gas-powered.[3]

The buses also featured an electronic guidance system designed by

Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate, whose demands for extensive testing made the M1's introduction slip from its original December 1999 date to January 2000.[3] Buses on the M1 would never run in passenger-carrying service using the experimental guidance system, with London Buses later admitting that the guidance system was not yet ready for deployment on the planned busway, resulting in the M1 instead using roads paralleling the busway throughout 2000.[1]

486

Go-Ahead London Alexander Dennis Enviro400 on Shooter's Hill in March 2012

Following the end of the Millennium celebration programme, it was planned that the M1 and M2 shuttles would be permanently withdrawn. However, as the M1 proved highly popular with local commuters heading to North Greenwich bus station to board the

472, being diverted onto the busway.[1]

From 23 February 2002, an extension of route 486 to

better source needed
]

Double-decker buses were introduced to the 486 in January 2007 following London Central's retainment of its tender to run the service. These consisted of 17 Alexander Dennis Enviro400s, the first to enter service with London Central, which replaced the Myllenniums and the Wright Eclipse.[6]

Although running on every day of the year, from its introduction, the 486 only ran on nights from Monday to Friday. In response to demand for a night service in the Charlton area, Transport for London introduced nighttime 486 services running every 30 minutes on weekends from 12 September 2015,[7] additionally serving Night Tube users when the service was introduced to the Jubilee line from 7 October 2016. The 486's weekend night services were suspended from March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however they would be reinstated over three years later on 28 July 2023.[8]

The frequency of the 486 was cut back on 23 February 2019 from every eight minutes to every 10 minutes on weekdays, with the Saturday frequency reduced to every 12 minutes.[9]

Current route

Route 486 operates via these primary locations:[10]

References

  1. ^ a b c Jukes, David (30 December 2016). "London's first busway". Buses. No. 742. Stamford: Key Publishing. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
  2. Glasgow Herald. p. 8. Archived from the original
    on 7 March 2016. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
  3. ^ a b Millar, Alan (February 2000). "To the Dome in style with a 'Y'". Buses. No. 539. Shepperton: Ian Allan Publishing. pp. 36–38. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
  4. ^ "All aboard the new Myllennium special". Lancashire Telegraph. Blackburn. 25 November 1999. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
  5. ^ "486 route history". London Bus Route Histories. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
  6. ISBN 978-1-47386-231-9
    . Retrieved 11 February 2024.
  7. ^ Chamberlain, Darryl (8 September 2015). "Weekend night buses on route 486 get set to start". The Charlton Champion. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
  8. ^ Chamberlain, Darryl (28 July 2023). "Woolwich's Queen Elizabeth Hospital gains a new night bus from tonight". The Greenwich Wire. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
  9. ^ Chamberlain, Darryl (28 January 2019). "TfL bus cuts: Route 486 to North Greenwich to be less frequent from 23 February". The Charlton Champion. Retrieved 11 February 2024.
  10. ^ "486 bus route". Transport for London. Retrieved 11 February 2024.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=London_Buses_route_486&oldid=1220860335"