Eeny, meeny, miny, moe… you are it! That’s how it feels for operators who run buses, or whose coaches and minibuses regularly visit our major cities.
Leeds is the latest to announce plans for a Clean Air Zone (CAZ) and in a couple of years, if your vehicle isn’t Euro 6, then you’ll be looking at paying £100 a day to enter the zone.
While this adds £2 per seat to a full-size coach, minicoaches and minibuses are hit disproportionally hard.
If you haven’t got the Government’s message now, then you need to be clear: Euro 6 is your only diesel option.
There are small carrots – mainly offered to bus operators – with the promise of some funding towards retrofit.
But, not all vehicles are suitable and you’re not going to get much change out of £20,000 per vehicle.
The stick of Euro 6, however, is not as large as it could be.
Unlike some European countries, if your passengers are willing to pay the daily charge, then at least you will be admitted.
Across the water, some (such as Paris) are going down the route of electric only in their city centres, or simply banning pre-Euro 6 vehicles. In that respect, the UK industry is slightly more fortunate.
This applies to car drivers too, where in many European cities, older cars are banned.
To solve a problem like clean air requires a political solution. And these are often unpopular, especially when car drivers hold the ace cards – in terms of votes. “We want clean air, but it’s someone else’s fault,” they cry. That is one reason why PSVs have become ‘it’.
