The government have said that local authorities can apply to become the UK's first all-electric bus town by funding bus companies to enable them to use zero-emission electric buses serving a specific town in Britain.
Extracts from UK government website
Local authorities can now apply to become the UK’s first all-electric bus town, setting the ‘gold-standard’ in environmentally friendly public transport, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has announced today (6 February 2020).
The winning area will receive up to £50 million to help pay for a brand-new fleet of electric buses, reducing emissions and cleaning up the air in their community.
A town with 200 electric buses could save around 7,400 tonnes of CO2 each year, the equivalent to taking 3,700 diesel cars off the road.
The £50 million fund is part of a total £170 million allocated today to improve services and make bus journeys greener, easier and more reliable. This commitment marks the next step in delivering the government’s £220 million package to overhaul bus services across England and level up transport infrastructure.
Passengers will also benefit from new low-fare, high-frequency Superbus networks to increase the frequency of services by investing in bus lanes and other priority measures. The first will be introduced in Cornwall next year, where the network will be integrated with the county’s main railway line, which will also see increased train frequency, connecting people with jobs, education and family.
Investments are also being made to speed up bus journeys. As part of the first tranche of the £2.5 billion Transforming Cities Fund, Derby and Nottingham, the North East, Portsmouth and Southampton will see the deployment of bus priority traffic lights to speed up trips to the city centres.
The government announced last year that it will launch the UK’s first-ever long-term bus strategy and long-term funding plan, to ensure that buses are prioritised into the future.
Read more here
Could
your town or city be the first to have all electric buses? They can now
bid for £50m of funding to:
✅ Buy
new electric buses
✅ Make journeys cleaner
✅ Reduce
air pollution
Find out more 👉https://t.co/W9uvZcJFjk#LoveYourBus | #NetZero |
#LevellingUp
pic.twitter.com/IOkQXJpxXi
—
Dept for Transport (@transportgovuk) February
6, 2020
It will be interesting to see which town will have a bus service fully served with electric buses.
As the UK Bus Summit was held on the same day (6 February 2020) as the government announced plans for an all-electric bus town, there were three buses parked in front of the QEII Centre in Westminster, London. The buses were the Alexander Dennis-Scania Enviro400CBG City, Optare Metrodecker EV and Alexander Dennis-BYD Enviro400EV City. The City bodywork design cues are taken from the New Routemaster bus designed by Thomas Heatherwick.
We're at
the Bus Summit. pic.twitter.com/hAEHBElSEc
—
London TravelWatch (@LonTravelWatch) February
6, 2020
Here at the #UKBusSummit
today, looking forward to an interesting day ahead. pic.twitter.com/JW75bAd55u
—
Kieran Proctor (@kj_proctor) February
6, 2020
A lovely morning
at #UKBusSummit.
Perfect chance to highlight @BYD_Europe's
new zero emission double decker bus assembled here in the UK by @ADLbus!
Great timing w/ T'port Sec @grantshapps
today annoucing a £50m plan to create the first all-electric bus town
🚌🚏🚍 #electricbus
pic.twitter.com/ByjZNdkI0g
—
Instinctif PP (@Instinctif_PP) February
6, 2020
There are hundreds of manufacturers producing electric buses worldwide and you can view the full list of manufacturers on the EV Trader website.
Here's the recent London Bus tender award for one route.
Tuesday 4th February
LBSL intends to enter into a new contract for the following route with the operator listed below:
| Route | Current Operator | New Operator | PVR | Vehicles |
| R7 | Stagecoach Selkent | Go-Ahead London Metrobus | 4 | Existing diesel single deck |
The contract for route R7 will commence on 5th December 2020. The vehicles will meet Euro VI emissions standards.
Unfortunately route R7 won't be using zero emission single-deck electric buses for the time being.
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