A popular bus route through Barnet and Harrow will be split in two as a restructuring effort to improve connectivity in north London.

From Saturday (September 10), the 83 route will be split into two, with an overlap between Alperton and Wembley Stadium stations.

Its northern leg will continue to run along its existing line of route from Alperton station to Golders Green where it will terminate.

The southern leg will be renamed the 483 and run between Ealing Hospital to Wembley Stadium station, then extend to terminate at Harrow Bus Station.

Transport for London hopes the move will improve reliability and ease congestion along the route, which operates 24-hours a day.

It currently takes four hours for buses to complete the 83 route so it is difficult to maintain reliability for customers especially when there is traffic.

Accord to TfL, the two shorter routes will be more manageable with the new route 83 service estimated to take 160 minutes and the 483 around 190 minutes.

Expected benefits include increased capacity, the creation of new links to and from East Lane to Harrow and Wembley and direct links between Ealing and Alperton to Harrow town centre and Northwick Park Hospital.

Over the last five years daily usage on route 83 has increased by 15 per cent to 38,000 trips on Mondays to Fridays, by 24 per cent to 31,000 trips on Saturdays and by 27 per cent to 26,000 trips on Sundays.

Night bus use over the same period has increased by 40 per cent.