Wednesday 20 October 2021

COP26 electric bus tour unveiled by Transport Minister

Transport Minister Trudy Harrison MP has hailed an electric bus tour from London to Glasgow to celebrate COP26.

The 11-day tour will begin at Go-Ahead’s bus garage near Tottenham in north London, which is one of the largest of its kind in Europe. The garage is also home to a project led by SSE, UK Power Networks and TfL, which could make buses two-way chargers – meaning they could put power back into the grid.

The site can charge up to 100 electric buses overnight, with London currently having 950 on the road or in order.

The COP26 branded electric bus will begin its journey to Glasgow three days before the conference gets underway. It will travel to the 500MW offshore wind farm at Greater Gabbard in the East and visit the businesses and local authorities driving decarbonisation in Oxford and Peterborough.

The bus will open an official COP26 charging garage upon arrival.

The Transport Minister commented: “Today’s launch event is a wonderful example of the collaboration and innovation required to reach our net zero targets ahead of COP26 and Northumberland Park is already playing a huge role by bringing cleaner air to London with its 117 electric buses in operation.

“The government has recently pledged a further £2.8 billion to support the switch to cleaner vehicles and the project based here is precisely the kind of research we need to power up the electric vehicle revolution, not just for cars but for public transport too.”