The fastest bus in London which runs from Sainsbury’s to Tesco

Bus passengers across London know the anguish of hopping on one of the city’s big red beasts only to be held up in traffic, crawl down 20mph roads, or worse yet – wait for a change of driver just far enough from your stop that walking is off the cards. But the city still has one of the best bus networks in the world, and this week’s announcement of the Superloop service [1] marks another step towards a lightning-fast vision of bus travel in London. The new express service will form an almost continuous 100-mile loop around outer London, with planned stops from Canary Wharf [2] to Grove Park, Russel Square to Croydon [3], and White City to Uxbridge [4]. Transport for London [5] (TfL) say it will be the ‘jewel in the crown’ against the backdrop of ULEZ expansion, and is a ‘game changer’ for outer London.

Route 321 was launched on November 8 1997 and became a 24-hour service on October 10 2009 (Image: Aubrey Morandarte / Creative Commons)

But in the race for speed, what of the existing bus routes? MyLondon [7] crunched TfL data to find the fastest routes in the capital. The bus king of speed transports passengers nearly 10 miles through 51 stops from New Cross Sainsbury’s [8] to Sidcup’s Tesco [9] Superstore on the Kent border – all at a whopping 18.3mph. That’s the N321 – the fastest bus in London for routes which have posted available data for the last 11 months.

The average speeds showed it led the way by just 0.1mph, with the N213 clocking in a respectable 18.2mph average between Kingston and Sutton [10]. The N119 and N33 also posted pacey times, but it was the trusty 246 which retained its crown as the fastest day service. Of course night buses have a lot less traffic and passengers to contend with, so it’s no surprise the N321 came out on top.

In fact, night buses dominate the speed charts, with only two-day services making it into the top ten when you exclude weird routes like the UL13, UL25, UL39, and UL34, which only recorded speeds for less than two months early in 2022.

The pacey bus cuts across South East London at world-beating speeds (Image: TfL)

The N321 starts near New Cross Overground station before heading down to Lewisham. It then continues on the A20 through Lee Green and over to Eltham. The bus then darts down Footscray Road towards Sidcup before trundling on to the big Tesco next to the Sidcup bypass.

The daytime version of the route averages 10mph – over 8mph slower than the night bus. Google Maps estimates the full day route to take nearly an hour, while at around 2am the journey could take as little as 30 minutes – that’s 1.7 stops per minute. While the Superloop might threaten the speed demon pecking order, don’t forget about the buses that are doing it right now.

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References

^ announcement of the Superloop service (www.mylondon.news)
^ Canary Wharf (www.mylondon.news)
^ Croydon (www.mylondon.news)
^ Uxbridge (www.mylondon.news)
^ Transport for London (www.mylondon.news)
^ TfL to launch huge new ‘Superloop’ express bus network all over Outer London following ULEZ bus criticism (www.mylondon.news)
^ MyLondon (www.mylondon.news)
^ Sainsbury’s (www.mylondon.news)
^ Tesco (www.mylondon.news)
^ Sutton (www.mylondon.news)
^ [email protected] (www.mylondon.news)
^ here. (www.mylondon.news)