PARTY animals will be able to catch a bus home in the small hours - with an extra service laid on just for them.

A bus company boss says late-night revellers have pushed passenger numbers up by ten per cent in the past six months on its Nightstar and it hopes to increase this further with a 3.45am run on the most popular service.

Bluestar operations manager Alex Hornby said: "Clubbers are definitely the main users of our night bus service. We get a few night workers but more and more people are using the bus to get home after a night out."

He said that drivers on the night buses already knew most of the regular users and they had no trouble.

Nightstar services run from Leisure World, Southampton to Shirley, Millbrook, Lordshill, Bitterne, Thornhill, Winchester, Eastleigh and Waterside. The route currently with the most demand - Nightstar 9 covering Marchwood, Hythe, Fawley and Waterside - now has departures every hour from 12.45am to 3.45am.