Know Your Routes: Route 168

The 168 is operated by Arriva London, and runs out of their Ash Grove (AE) depot. Standing at approximately 7.0 miles, the 168 is not extremely long but still has it's fair share of congestion during the rush hour, mainly in the central London area.

Now let us begin at the source of the route, at Old Kent Road. The route's terminus here is around the back of a rather large Tesco, hence the destination displays on both photographs (left).

Firstly, the route follows the Old Kent Road, then New Kent Road straight after Bricklayer's Arms flyover. About 7-8  mins later you will reach Elephant and Castle Station before quickly heading off towards St. George's Circus, and Waterloo Bridge.

Now north of the river, the 168 will call at Holborn, Russell Square, Euston, Mornington Crescent, Camden Town, and finally Hampstead Heath opposite the stands to Borismaster route 24!

Now moving onto vehicle specification. The 168 uses many vehicles. But let's put it this way: the main bulk of allocations are Volvo B7TL Eclipse Gemini's. Odd appearances from other types of bus are from the vast  fleet of Enviro 400's and the powerful batch of DB300's. Now, in terms of frequency, on Monday's-Friday's AND even Sunday's, the 168 generally runs every 6-7 mins. This is very impressive, much better than the crap service you get on the P13! On Sunday's and other public holiday's the 168 runs every 10 minutes which is the weekday frequency for some routes.