Nottingham buses to be retrofitted in effort to reduce emissions

Nearly half of Nottingham City Transport’s (NCT) fleet of 330 buses are set to be upgraded to improve their tailpipe emissions.

Following a successful joint bid from the bus operator and Nottingham City Council, £2.7 million of funding from DEFRA’s Clean Vehicle Technology Fund will be used to convert 161 diesel buses to the Euro VI standards. This will improve the tailpipe emissions by 90 per cent and comply with a future Clean Air Zone.

Councillor Sally Longford, the council’s Portfolio Holder for Neighbourhood Services and Local Transport, said: “This is fantastic news that will benefit many of our key routes into the city. It builds on the already impressive strides made in the city to improve our air quality.”

Retrofitting diesel vehicles involves fitting a new tank and making alterations to the exhaust which will reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions by around 63,411kg a year, and emissions of particulate matter by 488kg per year.

NCT Engineering Director, Gary Mason commented: “By Spring, we’ll have a fleet of 53 Euro VI biogas powered double-deck buses – the largest double-deck gas bus fleet in the world. The success of these buses combined with their ultra-low carbon footprint (using bio methane as a fuel) has encouraged NCT to adopt this fuel technology for future new bus orders and it is intended that all existing Euro III and Euro IV buses will be replaced in this way.”

The City Council, which already runs 58 electric vehicles on its Linkbus services, will use its share of the funding to convert its remaining five diesel buses to Euro VI standard.