All aboard the magic bus

WELCOME to the future of bus travel in York. Possibly. The Optare Solo looks pretty much like a regular bus – if a pleasingly modern one. The front end bulges slightly, and there’s a huge windscreen giving the driver great visibility. There is sitting room on the single-decker bus for 33 people, and space for more standing.

Inside, it’s…well... a bus. The seats are firm, and as comfortable as you’d expect of a new bus; the view out of the windows is good. There is a bay at the front with tip-up seats to give space for wheelchairs and buggies when needed and, a nice touch, the bus ‘kneels’ at bus stops to reduce the height for passengers climbing aboard. There’s also a foldout ramp for those wheelchairs Most new buses boast these features, however. So what makes the Solo special?

That fact that it is powered entirely by electricity, that’s what.

Instead of a big diesel engine belching out fumes, there is a pack of 52 lithium iron batteries which power a 150KW electric motor.

The bus is made at the Optare factory at Sherburn-in-Elmet, near York – the only UK-based manufacturer to be making electric buses. And when it sweeps up to collect me from outside the city council’s new West Offices HQ for a ‘test ride’, with Optare’s commercial director Chris Wise at the wheel, it is oddly quiet.

The same is true once you’re on board. There is the hum of air compressors – but none of the shaking and rattling so typical of diesel buses, especially when they are stuck motionless in traffic jams.

“And one of the huge benefits for us is that there are zero tailpipe emissions,” says Jon Eardley, the engineering director of bus company First York, who has joined us for the ride.

That lack of emissions will be one of the huge benefits for pedestrians in York, too, if as expected, buses like this begin to operate on the city’s streets from next year. You won’t, as a bus pulls away from the kerb beside you, get a blast of dirty brown fumes in the face.

As readers of The Press will know, York recently secured £824,000 of funding under Whitehall’s Green Bus Fund to pay towards the cost of buying nine of these electric buses.

The plans are for Transdev to have one electric Solo to operate on its UniLink route servbing the University of York.

The City Council would have two Solos to serve Derwenthorpe, while First would have six slightly larger electric Versas – also built by Optare, but with a seating capacity of nearly 40 – operating on Park&Ride routes.

The city council and First haven’t placed orders with Optare yet – but they are understood to be ‘imminent’. If they do go ahead as expected by the end of this month, the nine buses could well be operating in York by March next year.

Judging by my trip in a Solo, passengers won’t notice a great deal of difference: except that it’s a nice, clean, modern bus. It certainly isn’t slow – because of the high ‘torque’ of electric motors it pulls away from the kerb every bit as quickly as a conventional diesel bus and I suspect, if Chris wasn’t driving especially carefully, it could well accelerate even more speedily.

But the main benefit of having the buses in York – at least from the city council’s point of view – would be improvements to the city’s air quality.

There is no doubt that conventional diesel buses do belch out pollution, admits Derek McCreadie, the council’s low emission officer.

They are much better in terms of pollution generated per person than cars, because they carry so many passengers. But they also make a lot of journeys. “So the Holy Grail of public transport is a clean bus that doesn’t produce any pollution.”

An electric bus fits that bill. Yes, the electricity to charge it up has to come from the national grid, and had to be produced somewhere. That may well have involved burning coal or some other form of fossil fuel.

But as they travel around York, these buses aren’t adding to the city’s haze of pollution – pollution that is especially bad in hot spots such as Fishergate.

So would bringing these nine buses into operation next year solve York’s pollution problem?

No, is the simple answer. There are about 100 buses operating frequently in the centre of York. The nine electric buses would only constitute six per cent of all York’s bus traffic, Mr McCreadie admits.

The city’s electric adventure next year will be an experiment, in effect. “It is a question of giving it a go, and if it works, you can imagine it being rolled out,” Mr McCreadie says.

That is still a fairly big ‘if’ at the moment, however. Electric buses are still very new technology, and there are a number of issues with them.

Price is one. A single decker electric bus costs in the order of £230,000 – compared to £120,000 for a conventional bus, Mr McCreadie says.

York is only able to afford these nine thanks to the Government’s Green Bus Fund, which is paying for the bulk of the difference in price.

Optare points out that the buses are much cheaper to run (they can be charged up overnight on economy-rate electricity rather than being filled with expensive diesel) and also much cheaper to maintain. That is because instead of all the moving parts associated with a conventional diesel engine, there are just batteries and a single electric motor.

Because the bus doesn’t vibrate as much when in use, there is also less damage over time to the bodywork.

Because they are zero-emission, there is also less tax payable. For all these reasons, the hope is that over the lifetime of the buses, they will prove to be cheaper or at least comparable in cost to conventional buses.

“We need to work through the vehicles’ life, but there’s no reason to believe that they won’t be viable,” says First’s Jon Eardley.

Then there is the question of whether they can cope with the demands that will be placed upon them.

The 52 lithium iron batteries in both the Versa and the Solo take about six hours to charge completely, according to the specifications – and give a range for both buses of between 70 and 95 miles, depending on how they are used and driven.

Gauges in the cockpit allow the driver to monitor constantly how efficiently he is driving, so as to maximise the mileage that can be obtained. There are also plans to fit ‘top-up chargers’ at Park&Ride sites in York, that can give the batteries a quick boost, to make sure the buses should never run out of power.

The vehicles are actually ideal for Park & Ride routes, says Chris Wise. And indeed, they may well be – but only time will really tell.

It is difficult at this stage to predict just how significant the arrival of York’s first electric buses next year could be, therefore. But at the very least it is an interesting experiment – and it could just represent the beginning of a move to electric public transport that could transform the quality of the air we all breathe in York.

Firm at the forefront of taking travel into future

THE Optare factory at Sherburn-in-Elmet employs about 300 people, and made about 500 buses last year.

Most of these are still conventional diesel buses – though interest is growing in electric and hybrid.

Of the 500 buses made last year, 55 were electric and 20 hybrid, says Chris Wise, Optare’s commercial director.

It takes five to six weeks for a bus to be built. Visit Optare’s vast, hangar-like factory and you see buses in various stages of completion – and painted in various colours for different operators.

Chris Wise indicates a small Solo painted a particularly vivid green. “That’s going to Switzerland,” he says. “It will be the first electric bus in Switzerland.”

There is no doubt that there are many potential benefits to having electric buses.

But, provided they prove economically viable, and up to the job of running regular bus routes around a busy city like York, there are still a couple of issues the people of York might want to be satisfied about.

One is the question of noise. The electric buses don’t really make any – at least, the motors don’t.

That may be good for people living in homes close to busy bus routes, but couldn’t it be a bit dangerous for other road users?

Some electric cars are experimenting with sound packs to make them more noticeable.

Derek McCreadie, City of York Council’s low emission officer, doesn’t believe artificial noise will be necessary for the buses, however.

They are much bigger than cars, he points out. They have much more presence, they’re much more visible – and they do make a noise, just from the sound of their tyres swishing on the roads.

And what about the question of fees for passengers?

Given that the buses are more expensive to buy, can passengers using an electric bus expect to have to pay more?

Fares will be up to the operators, Mr McCreadie says. “In the very long term, using electricity offers the potential for cheaper fares compared with diesel fares as the price of diesel escalates.

“However, this is not something which can be expected straight away.”