NATIONAL EXPRESS WEST MIDLANDS invests £150m in electric buses

This investment is part of its commitment to have a completely zero emission bus fleet in the UK by 2030. Thanks to the original Government investment that kick started the transition to Zero Emission Buses (ZEB), National Express is now in a position to acquire these buses.

This will mean that over a third of its fleet will be zero emissions which is the highest proportion of any city region in the country. Each zero emission vehicle saves an average of 66 tonnes of carbon annually, a total of nearly 20,000 tonnes from going out into the atmosphere every year.

Additional investment will be made in infrastructure for charging and maintenance of the fleet across our network of depots. The electricity to power the electric vehicles will be 100% renewable and zero carbon. Transport for West Midlands and bus operators are making a series of investments which will see some 800 electric and zero-emission buses on the region’s streets by 2026.

This includes the Coventry Electric Bus City project which is replacing all 275 buses, across all operators, on the city’s streets by 2025. A further 124 electric or hydrogen powered buses, including 24 articulated vehicles for the Sprint route on the A34 and A45, will be delivered next year through the Zero-Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) fund. This is in addition to the investment by private bus operators as they renew their fleets for the zero-emission future.