Illuminated

Ian Burke was not someone who grew up riding buses. His school was in walking distance, his parents had a car.

But one night in his 20s, he had a dream which began a love affair with bus travel.

Any spare moment is now spent exploring undiscovered routes or revisiting old favourites.

“It’s about the journey, the out-of-the-way, the overheard snippets of conversation, the weird and unfamiliar place names, the people you’re with, the unexpected,” says Ian.

He’s someone who can find beauty in an industrial estate or a gossip between pensioners.

But it’s time for a new adventure. In a bid to boost the local economy and provide safer travel for revellers and shift workers, Manchester is trialling new bus routes at night.

Alongside the drunken students dissecting their evening exploits and the night-time workers struggling to stay awake, we join Ian as he hops aboard the night bus to experience, for the first time, the darker side of both his home city and bus travel.