TRANSPORT
© Julian Walker ‘This is a reward for taking some risks’
Council-owned bus firm Reading Buses has been named Low Carbon Vehicle Operator of the Year for its innovative investment in gas-powered buses. PSE talked to its chief executive, James Freeman.
R
eading Buses is a relatively small council- owned transport company that punches well above its weight.
Its latest award – judges at the LowCVP Low Carbon Champions Awards named it ‘Low Carbon Vehicle Operator of the Year’ – will have to be squeezed into the trophy cabinet alongside a whole host of others, including three gongs from the last UK Bus Awards, ‘Bus Transport Operator of the Year’ at the National Transport Awards, and four awards at the 2013 Operator Excellence Awards.
Its CEO, James Freeman, has been instrumental in his seven years at the company in making it a pioneer in eco-friendly buses – though he is leaving soon to become managing director for Bristol and the West of England at First UK Bus.
‘Super green’ fleet
In 2010-11 Reading Buses made full use of the Department for Transport’s Green Bus Fund to buy 31 electric hybrid buses – the government funded the ‘extra’ cost of £100,000 per vehicle for each £200,000 bus. They have running costs about 25% lower than normal buses.
More recently, it has bought 34 Scania KUB270/ADE Enviro300GS CNG (compressed natural gas) buses.
This means that 65 of its 160 buses, about 40% of the fleet, is either diesel-electric hybrid, or gas-powered – the largest proportion of ‘super green’ buses in the country.
The judges at the LowCVP Low Carbon Champions Awards said: “Reading Buses’ was a particularly impressive entry, demonstrating how the use of gas buses has brought additional benefits through reduced air pollution emissions and noise. The company has made further commitments to lower the environmental impact of its day-to-day operation, including initiatives to reduce energy consumption and waste generation.”
Reading Buses has the first gas bus filling station in the UK, which was officially opened by transport minister Baroness Kramer in
September 2014. It will also be used to fuel converted taxis in the town, thanks to a government grant.
Commercial decisions
The company, which has been operating for more than 100 years, is fully-owned by Reading Borough Council. But Freeman told PSE the morning after the awards ceremony: “Although we’re council-owned, these decisions are made by us, commercially.”
He explained that the cost of the hybrid buses would have been prohibitively expensive without the government funding, but the gas buses were a commercially attractive position. Although the buses cost about £40,000 more than a standard diesel, the much lower running costs meant there was a good business case – “it wasn’t just some sort of policy handed down from above”, he said. “We couldn’t do hybrid [again], but we wanted to do something that was really green. The thing about gas is that it’s a technology that exists, that is fully operational, and that is in no way still in a prototype phase. There are tens of thousands of these across the world, though only a few in Britain.
“The [gas] buses are the best, most reliable and far-and-away cheapest to run vehicles that we’ve got. It’s quite amazing, and they’re cleaner to boot. I can’t understand why there are so few of these in the UK – it’s really weird.
“It’s good for people who ride on buses that the decision to take that ride is on a sound environmental basis. We want people who ride on buses to feel that they’re doing the right thing by themselves and by society. We’re constantly thinking of ways to make passengers realise that riding on buses is a cool thing to do and a positive choice, and something they want to do.
“That’s supported by the fact that our ridership figures, is year-on-year 10% up, and has been for the last couple of years in Reading. There’s a lot of reasons for that – the quality of the fleet, driver behaviour, the availability of wi- fi – but the fact is that making a very positive statement about emissions and environmental sensitivities plays well with people in the town. It affects not only the users but everyone else.”
After the awards ceremony in Milton Keynes, LowCVP MD Andy Eastlake said: “This year we had more, and higher quality, entries than ever before showing just how far and fast the whole low carbon road transport industry is now progressing, and how many individual stakeholders are contributing to the change.”
Discussing the award ceremony, attended by Reading Buses chief engineer John Bickerton (pictured, second from left), Freeman said: “I think it’s amazing that here we are against Tesco and Eddie Stobart, and here’s little Reading Buses with its 160 vehicles, and we’ve won this prestigious award. It’s very exciting, and a reward for taking some risks.
“Because we’re relatively independent, we’re able to try things that we think will work for us, and we can take a few risks – not too many, obviously! But we can do things that are slightly unusual in the expectation that they might be able to do something spectacular. In this case, that’s exactly what they’ve done.”
© Absolute Photography Ltd
FOR MORE INFORMATION W:
www.reading-buses.co.uk
public sector executive Oct/Nov 14 | 61
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