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In a city as vast as London, reliable public transport is as essential to a good night out as a great venue. The Big Smoke offers both. A new joint report by Time Out and Transport for London (TfL) has revealed that London is the best city in Europe for nightlife and late-night travel.
The London After Dark report analysed nearly 6,000 survey responses from 26 European capital cities. We combined two scores from Time Out’s Best Cities survey 2026: nightlife and transport. London didn’t get the highest score in either of those categories individually, but it came out on top when the two were added together.
Our city scored 75.9 percent for its nightlife (fourth to Paris, Berlin and Madrid) and 84.1 percent for transport (second only to Vienna). Combined, it’s top of the leaderboard with a score of 80 percent.
We also spent a week speaking to 200 Londoners, who shared their experiences of London after dark through surveys, diary entries, creative tasks and personal stories. Interviews with experts on the capital’s night-time economy gave us even more insight.
Nine in 10 people told us that they enjoy longer nights out in London because they know that they can still travel on the night tube and Overground in the early hours of the morning. After midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, Londoners can still catch the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly, Victoria and Windrush lines home. Since the night services were introduced in 2016, they’ve supported an average of 81,000 journeys per night.
In response to the study, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: ‘For the past decade, the Night Tube has been a defining feature of London as a world-leading 24-hour city – helping Londoners and visitors enjoy everything our great capital has to offer, and supporting our vital workers and businesses to boost our night-time economy.
‘This report really brings to life how the Night Tube connects Londoners and visitors with our city’s incredible cultural offering, helping people discover new venues and events in new parts of the capital while ensuring they can travel home safely and affordably at any hour.’
Take a look at the full London After Dark report by Time Out and TfL here.
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