Chief Engineer talks about e-buses ‘and how they became business as usual’
Chris McKeown, Chief Engineer of Go-Ahead London, drew a huge crowd at The Theatre for his talk on electric buses in London.
He talked about the initial trial of electric buses at Go-Ahead’s Waterloo depot three years ago and subsequent steps the firm has taken to introduce more electric buses to the capital.
“Waterloo does remain very significant, to us, and to electric operation in London,” he says. “That’s where electric buses stopped being a trial, stopped being a pilot, and became business as usual for us.
“There is a very well-engaged workforce there. The drivers are proud to be driving electric vehicles and that’s partly why its been such a success.”
Since Waterloo, the company has been awarded further contracts on electric vehicles – route 108 which is partial electric and routes 360, 153, and 214. Go-Ahead operates 101 electric buses out of four different operating locations, Waterloo, Northumberland Park, Camberwell and New Cross.
The electric buses have driven over 3m km in the last three years and Mr McKeown said a lot of people ask about what the units of energy mean.
“We’ve used approximately 2.80m kw of energy, and if you were to convert that to how much diesel we’ve used,1.6m litres of diesel would achieve the same mileage.”
Mr McKeown says: “Going forward, we have to provide an electric option for every tender we bid for.
“Another 73 buses are on order for another six routes that we’ve won.”
Onsite overnight charging was discussed along with the difference between AC and DC charging.
“In summary, electric works for us. The whole process of understanding the power requirements, how we deliver those power requirements and how we deliver that in a garage format, is an exercise that we understand quite well now, and demonstrates that it isn’t a trial anymore, it isn’t speculative, it’s all achievable, with the right planning.”
He took questions from the floor, with operators being mostly interested in the long-term cost of running the buses compared to diesel, the cost of putting an infrastructure in and the cost of a new electric vehicle compared to diesel.
