This article begins a series to review the TTC’s overnight services, aka the Blue Night network. Most of these are bus routes, but a few of the older lines still operate with streetcars.

Included in this article are:

• 307 Bathurst
• 329 Dufferin
• 332 Eglinton West
• 335 Jane
• 336 Finch West
• 341 Keele
• 352 Lawrence West

Other routes will follow in future installments.

It’s worth reviewing the TTC Service Standards regarding their Blue Night network.

Purpose of night service:

The overnight network is designed so 95% of the population and employment is within a 1,250 metre walk (15 minutes) of transit service. Consequently, overnight services may be provided on different routes than the base network in order to meet these requirements. Where possible, however, overnight routes will follow daytime routing and be identified in a manner consistent with the daytime route. The overnight network is an important part of the TTC’s commitment to maximizing the mobility of people in the City of Toronto and meeting all of their diverse travel needs.

• Hours of service: 1:30am to 6:00am (8:00am Sunday)
• % of population and employment served: 95%
• Within walking distance: 1250 metres
• Within walking time: 15 minutes
• Minimum service frequency: 30 minutes
• Headway performance: Service is considered to be on time if it is no more than 1 minute early and no more than 5 minutes late. TTC’s goal is to have 60% of all trips meet the on-time performance standard.

The one minute early standard was informally dropped in early 2025 and on time performance is now measured by TTC against a -0/+5 scale. That applies to on-time departure at terminals, but not to headways. The standard allows a swing of headways between 25-35 minutes for a half-hourly service as shown below. The service is “on time”, but unreliable, especially when the compounding effect of the swings is considered at transfer points.

Moreover, the “standard” need only be achieved 60% of the time, and then only at terminals. Almost half of the service is held to no standard at all.

Trip	Scheduled Time / Headway	Actual Time / Headway
1	2:00	2:00
2	2:30 / 30m	2:35 / 35m
3	3:00 / 30m	3:00 / 25m
4	3:30 / 30m	3:35 / 35m
5	4:00 / 30m	4:00 / 25m

The TTC does not have any planned meets in its night network, and these would require scheduled, protected departure times enroute, not the current catch-as-catch-can arrangement. On a half-hourly base and with long routes, the gaps between buses can vary a lot, and riders cannot count on their arrival. This is a common annoyance on the daytime network, but on the night routes where a missed bus can make a large difference in trip time, this should be unacceptable.

Most night services operate every 30 minutes, although there are exceptions on both the bus and streetcar networks. That service level is provided generally from 2am onward to about 4am, later on some routes depending on when demand begins to build up for the morning. There is also some overlap of daytime and night time route number usage, although the TTC has been sorting out its schedules for consistency in past months.

Some routes do achieve a narrow band of headways around 30 minutes for terminal departures, although this band widens along the route just as it does with daytime service. However, some routes have erratic headways even near their terminals, but the standards are lax enough that these still can count as mostly “on time” in reports of service quality.

For all that the night services are supposed to be for shift workers and the night economy, reliability leaves much to be desired because, like so much TTC service, the time a vehicle will arrive is unpredictable. The situation varies from route to route as the sample in this article will show. Some routes are not too bad, but still leave riders vulnerable to missed trips and connections. Others are a real mess with 307 Bathurst taking the prize here. (There are likely competitors for that title, but I have not worked through every route yet. Be patient, gentle reader.)

May is an ideal month usually free of major storms, hot or cold, and conditions are about as good as one can expect. Service in February will not be as good as the examples shown here.

The TTC’s common bugbear/excuse for erratic service, traffic congestion, does not apply to these night services. Uneven headways are caused by lack of line management, the absence of a policy to maintain on time performance along routes, and in a minority of cases by schedules that are too tight to allow for terminal recovery time.

Through this series, I will review the quality of night service provided on the TTC system. This will take a while, and the articles will appear as time permits in between other topics.

Note: This is a long article with a lot of charts. I don’t expect most people to read every word or review every route. For some, this might validate their own experience. For others, it will show the variations across the network. Happy reading.

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