Arriva Midlands has shown its commitment to helping the environment with its eco-friendly depot is Shrewsbury and its electric bus trial
With emission zones appearing across the country, the coach and bus industry is doing all it can to help the environment. One operator who is working to tackle the pollution issue is Arriva Midlands.
Destination Green is Arriva’s environmental pledge.
“As a public transport provider, protecting the environment is already part of what we do at Arriva,” says Jamie Crowsley, General Manager for Shropshire, Arriva Midlands.
“We believe that public transport services have a key role to play in addressing environmental challenges, which will grow in importance in a world of population growth, urbanisation and resource scarcity.
“Our commitment is to continually reduce the impacts travel through modal shift towards shared transport, while at the same time minimising our own environmental impacts as a business. We call this our Journey to Destination Green.”
Shrewsbury’s dedication
Jamie explains that every person at Arriva contributes towards the Journey to Destination Green.
“From the perspective of a local network operator, we can all play a part in reducing our footprint to support the business’ overall objectives. These are things within our direct control, so we are in a really good place to start our journey.”
There are four key themes of Destination Green: Water target 30% reduction by 2020, waste no more than 30% to landfill by 2020, fuel and energy target 30% reduction.
Arriva’s Shrewsbury depot, which was purposefully built in 2012, has LED lighting throughout the site, rainwater harvesting for the toilet facilities, solar panels to heat the water supply and green roofing on some exterior buildings to support wildlife.
But as well as its eco depot, Arriva Midlands partnered with Shropshire County Council to undertake a review of greener transport solutions for the area, starting with a trial of an electric vehicle on its park-and-ride (P&R) services in Shrewsbury.
The single-deck Yutong E10 has a passenger capacity of 31 seated, 46 standing or 43 standing and one wheelchair user. The model on demonstration was a London specification with double doors.
Operating the P&R, Jamie says he was “really surprised” that the bus, which has a battery capacity of 324kWh, could go into service for a full day and come back with half of the charge left.
“The technology has come such a long way. It really surprised us how well it faired,” he adds.
Trial’s success
The trial on the P&R services lasted for three weeks in order to better assess the viability of this type of vehicle on the route, before deploying it elsewhere in Shropshire for further testing, the firm says.
“Congestion is quite severe in Shrewsbury, so we see P&R a solution to that. We have a responsibility to improve our bus network to provide a viable and attractive alternative to travelling by car, and especially in Shrewsbury to cut congestion,” Jamie adds.
He explains that the electric vehicle ran “really well” and was well received by both the drivers, passengers and Shropshire Council.
Passenger feedback was positive with them being impressed with how smooth, comfortable and very quiet the ride was.
But is electric for everyone?
But is electric for everyone?Jamie says: “If you were an operator that tried one of the earlier models of an electric bus, I think it will be worth revisiting.
“We did try, a few years ago, an earlier model of an electric vehicle – the range is far superior now.
“The trial has definitely been a worthwhile experience. It has generated a lot of interest and it does the job quite capably.”
Data driven
Shrewsbury really put the bus to use and collated data to see if electric is in its future.
Jamie explains that a decision would need to be taken with Shropshire Council once all the data has been collated on all the different areas the operation had been looking at.
“I think the one thing the bus has proved on this trial is that it is capable of operating the day and returning the depot with excess charge – which is brilliant,” he adds.
“The P&R is something we want to build on, which is another reason why we’re looking at these trials in different frequencies and the infrastructure.”
