| 486 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Overview | |
| Operator | Go-Ahead London |
| Garage | Bexleyheath |
| Vehicle | Volvo B9TLWright Eclipse Gemini 2 |
| Peak vehicle requirement | Day: 14 Night: 3 |
| Predecessors | Route M1 Route M2 |
| Night-time | 24-hour service |
| Route | |
| Start | Bexleyheath Shopping Centre |
| Via | Welling Shooter's Hill Queen Elizabeth Hospital Charlton |
| End | North Greenwich bus station |
| Length | 12 miles (19 km) |
| Service | |
| Level | 24-hour service |
| Frequency | Daytime: About every 8-15 minutes Night-time: About every 30 minutes |
| Operates | 24-hour service |
London Buses route 486 is aTransport for London contracted bus route in London, England. Running betweenBexleyheath Shopping Centre andNorth Greenwich bus station, it is operated byGo-Ahead London.
TheMillennium Dome (now known asThe O2) was constructed between June 1997 and December 1999 as part of the United Kingdom's celebrations of thethird millennium, with construction beginning in 1997 intending to help regenerate the industrialisedGreenwich Peninsula. The construction of the Dome on the former site of theEast Greenwich Gas Works, involving the use ofland reclamation, was also supplemented with the building of the nearbyGreenwich Millennium Village, both planned to be served by theLondon Underground'sJubilee Line Extension toStratford viaCanary Wharf.London Buses route 108, which uniquely ran through theBlackwall 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 byLondon Buses with funding fromEnglish Partnerships, the New Millennium Experience Company andGreenwich London Borough Council. Operated byLondon Central from theirNew Cross bus garage, these routes linked the Dome withCharlton andGreenwich railway stations respectively as part of the 'Millennium Transit' system. SeventeenEast Lancs Myllenniumsingle-deck buses onDAF 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 were subsequently rolled out to new London buses from the mid-2000s onwards. Three of the buses were alsoLPG gas-powered.[3]
The buses also featured an electronic guidance system designed byAlstom for use on a 0.8 miles (1.3 km) section of the M1's 'Millennium Busway'.[4] The system consisted of two low voltage electric cables buried in the road, which were tracked by equipment fitted to the bus, removing the need for guide wheels and raised kerbs used on conventional guided busways. This system made the busway fall under the jurisdiction ofHer 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 never ran 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]
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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 theJubilee line atNorth Greenwich tube station, route 486 commenced operations as a regular tendered bus service along the route of the M1 from 24 February 2001. London Central reused the fleet of 17 East Lancs Myllenniums downgraded to regular service buses on the service. The Millennium Busway eventually launched on 2 June 2001, resulting in the 486, as well as routes422 and472, being diverted onto the busway.[1]
From 23 February 2002, an extension of route 486 toBexleyheath was introduced, terminating atBexleyheath Shopping Centre. As a result, operations of the 486 transferred from London Central's New Cross garage toBexleyheath bus garage, where the onlyWright Eclipse built for a London bus operator onVolvo B7L chassis was introduced on the service to supplement the Myllenniums.[5][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 17Alexander 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 theCharlton area, Transport for London introduced nighttime 486 services running every 30 minutes on weekends from 12 September 2015,[7] additionally servingNight 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 theCOVID-19 pandemic, however they were 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]
Route 486 operates via these primary locations:[10]
forNorth Greenwich station
Media related toLondon Buses route 486 at Wikimedia Commons
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