Transport for London (TfL) has awarded operator contracts that will see a further 152 new electric buses added to the capital’s peak vehicle requirement (PVR).
That will see routes 50, 131, 194, 250, 255, 280, 289, 314, 320 and R70, along with the night-only N250 and school day services 663 and 689, converted. All are in the southern half of London, with a particular concentration on the Croydon area.
That shift were confirmed across two tranches on 12 and 20 October, with the awards sitting alongside a smaller number of contracts that will use existing diesel or diesel-electric hybrid buses.
Of the zero-emission PVR uplift, 116 will be double-deckers and 36 will be single-deckers. All route contracts that call for those buses begin in 2024 and will last for seven years, although TfL notes that entry into service of vehicles is dependent on timescales around delivery and infrastructure completion.
Arriva London will take the bulk of the additional zero-emission buses via a PVR of 76 across both tranches. Go-Ahead London accounts for 49, Stagecoach London 16, and Abellio London 11. Of the routes awarded, only one – single-vehicle school service 663 – changes hands, moving from Go-Ahead London to Arriva London.
Papers filed by TfL ahead of a meeting of its Safety, Sustainability and Human Resources Panel on 13 September stated that as of then, 1,150 zero-emission buses – including 20 hydrogen fuel cell-electric examples with Metroline – were in service in London, making up over 13% of the red bus fleet.
TfL says that by spring 2024, the number is on track to increase to 1,400. The body is also on target to have a full zero-emission bus fleet by 2034, although it remains the case that such an achievement will come by 2030 if government funding to do so is received.
However, opportunity around that accelerated timeframe “is closing,” according to an investment programme report put before TfL’s Programmes and Investment Committee on 5 October. It notes that route contracts generally running for seven years is a constraint on that faster transition. The report says that around 700 zero-emission buses are on order.
