Do buses run on New Year’s Day and are trains running?

As 2025 gets underway, many Brits are thinking about travelling to see friends and family – or returning home after celebrating New Year’s Eve.

For plenty of us, that means relying on public transport. But since it’s a UK-wide bank holiday, there can be some confusion about what’s running and what is not.

Here’s everything you need to know about trains and buses on New Year’s Day.

Do buses run on New Year’s Day?

It depends where you are in the country.

No Arriva bus services are running in Wales today, and the same goes for most of England. But limited routes are operating in places such as Merseyside, Kent, Hertfordshire and Essex.

You can check if your local route is running on the Arriva website here.

Stagecoach is also running a very limited number of services on New Year’s Day, with the majority of routes not going ahead until tomorrow.

Several dozen special buses will run today on Manchester’s Bee Network. A full list can be found here.

First Bus services are heavily limited around the UK, with the Glasgow Airport bus 500 among the few running with an altered timetable.

Meanwhile, all day and night routes operated by TfL in London will run according to a Sunday schedule.

Are the trains running today?

Most train companies are operating today, though many are adopting a Saturday or Sunday schedule.

Many routes are also affected by planned engineering works, so check whether your train is running before you leave.

Neither ScotRail nor Grand Central will be running any trains today.

Check which train routes are operating and when on the Network Rail website here.

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