Greater Anglia has declared its trial of Stansted Express overnight services on Fridays to be going well so far.

Launched at the start of last month, the overnight services have provided passengers with the option to travel by rail to meet late arrivals and catch early-morning departures from the Essex airport.

The publicly-owned operator reports that passengers have made more than one thousand extra journeys since it launched the trial on Friday 3 July.

The trial overnight services will run every Friday night until 26 September.

Stansted Express, which is to be rebranded as GBR Stansted Express, takes passengers from London Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport, stopping at several stations en route and interchanging with London Underground at Tottenham Hale.

The overnight services enable passengers to use both Night Tube and Stansted Express to make their journeys to and from the airport.

Greater Anglia has been collecting passenger data during the trial, monitoring how people are using the services during the early morning hours.

It will use the data it collects to assess demand for the overnight services and passengers’ travel patterns, which will help to inform the decisions that the operator will make on the future of the service.

Greater Anglia and Network Rail Anglia have worked together to organise the trial, with coordination becoming closer and easier since the operator returned to public ownership.

“It’s been fantastic to see passengers embrace this new option so quickly, and it’s clear there’s an appetite for a late-night and early-morning link between the airport and the capital.

“This trial represents a significant step forward as we look at ways of connecting Stansted to London by train twenty-four hours a day, wherever practical, in a similar way to other major international airports.

“Our passengers can now arrive by train for the first outbound flights, and those landing past midnight can connect straight into London – neither of which were previously possible. Additionally, it supports airport workers, with many operating on late night or early morning shifts.”

Jamie O’Donnell, Assistant Group Station Manager at Greater Anglia