In 2012 the City Council commenced a six year project to convert the whole of its tendered ‘Linkbus’ fleet to fully electric buses. The project has been delivered in close partnership with Nottingham Community Transport, following award of operating tenders.

Objectives The project has three main objectives – to cut operating costs, improve air quality and reduce noise pollution.

The Council has had to reduce it public transport budgets by £4m p.a. over the past 3 years. Purchasing electric buses for its tendered service network was seen as a key way to make substantial savings without cutting service provision.

Nottingham is a designated Clean Air City and has Go Ultra Low City and Company status. As such, it is one of five UK cities with a commitment to introduce a Clean Air Zone with Euro 6 emission entry standards for buses by 2020.

Nottingham is a compact accessible city with excellent bus network coverage and long operating hours to match its 24/7 expanding economy. Virtually all routes terminate in the heart of the city centre, using around 100 bus stops on streets with high pedestrian activity.

There are many residential, health and educational buildings very close to major bus routes. As such it is important that the buses in Nottingham have both low exhaust emissions and are as quiet as possible. Electric buses are much quieter in operation than diesel and have less ground borne vibration, benefitting pedestrians, residents, passengers and drivers.

FundingFunding for the £15.1m project has to date come from two principal sources: DfT Green Bus Funding Round (GBF) and the City Council’s workplace parking levy.

Further funds were received from the DfT Local Sustainable Transport Fund, Plugged in Places, OLEV and the EU Remourban Project.

Electric Bus Project Nottingham City Council in partnership with Nottingham Community Transport

Electric Bus ProjectNottingham’s

Specification The project was designed to meet the following specification:

• Cope with a range of different types of service – low and high frequency, different passenger capacities and operating hours.

• To operate from several existing neutral operating charging bases, allowing flexibility of contracting operator.

• To have a widespread network of daytime rapid chargers to increase network flexibility and efficiency.

• To take advantage of cheap night time electricity produced from the Council’s waste incineration equipment

• To act as a showcase demonstration city for electric buses.

• To have limited on-street construction works, with the flexibility to readily change routes and timetables

• To be relatively easy for any contracting operator to utilise.

Stage One - midibusesFor the first stage of the project 45 Optare EV midibuses were purchased, replacing existing Optare diesel buses of a similar size, over a three year period. These have a range of around 70 miles and run on services where a single daytime rapid charge can be timetabled – usually during the driver lunchtime break. They also require overnight trickle charging.

The majority of the buses are 9.2m Solos with 31 seats and 12 standees. There are also ten 10.4m Versas with 33 seats and 25 standees, which are used on the busier Medilink Park and Ride routes to two outlying hospitals, taking some 1.4m passengers p.a.

These buses have been utilised on a mix of low and high frequency routes, with seven 50kw rapid charging points at four locations, (including a central bus station and park and ride site), supporting them the high frequency Centrelink route operates only in the city centre and takes some 0.5m passengers pa. The Localinks and Worklinks cover a network of routes over the whole conurbation, some with demand responsive elements. All buses also require overnight trickle charging (using 2 x 7.5kw on-board chargers) with 53 of these points installed at various overnight depot areas .

Funding Year No. Buses Type ServiceGBF1 2012 4 Optare EV Solos CentrelinkGBF2 2013 4 Optare EV Solos LocallinkGBF3 2014 20 Optare EV Solos & Versas Medilink P&R and LocallinksGBF4 2015 17 Optare EV Solos Locallinks/WorklinksGBF4b 2015 13 BYD saloon City P&ROLEV 2016 0 Charging infrastructure All servicesTotal 58

Nottingham City Council’s electric bus fleet has recently reached the one million mile mark (since commencing operations in 2012), generating savings in fuel costs of £300,000 and reductions in carbon emissions of at least 1050 tonnes. It would take 27,000 trees grown from seedling over 10 years to absorb this amount of CO2.

There are also the added benefits to local air quality provided by the vehicle’s zero emissions drive-train, providing NOx savings of 15 tonnes and PM10 (the tiny particles whcih can enter the bloodstream, causing problems for heart health) reductions of at least 83kg, when compared with equivalent Euro 5 diesel buses.

The fuel cost savings of an electric bus when compared with a diesel bus, and including the 6 pence per km DfT Low Carbon Emission Bus Incentive Grant, are around 85 percent. There are further savings due to lower maintenance costs (around 40 percent) and no liability for vehicle excise duty. Analysis of operating figures indicates that, on average, the buses are travelling around 1 km per kilowatt hour of electricity consumed.

The savings in fuel costs as a result of using these first 45 buses, instead of diesels has been around £300,000 pa. This has enabled these services to be maintained in the face of severe cuts to Council resources over the past 5 years.

Stage 2 - saloonsThe second stage of the project focuses on the two main park and ride services to the city centre: These have long operating hours (up to 18 hours per day), high daily mileage (up to 180 miles) and require larger capacity buses to cope with peak demand. Following an open tender process, thirteen saloons (12m EBus) were purchased from BYD, each with two battery packs. These are able to operate for the full daily timetable without in service daytime charging. Charging takes place over a 5 hour period at night, utilising low cost electricity tariffs. These require different charging equipment than the Optare vehicles and a separate base has been built to store and charge these vehicles. They come into operation in two phases in October 2016 and January 2017, coinciding with operating tender changes. We predict further operational savings of £200k pa compared with the current buses.

Over the five year period there have also been several changes to operational tenders. All buses – both Optare and BYD - are now operated by Nottingham Community Transport, the majority of which are run and charged from two dedicated charging compounds within a park and ride site some two miles from the city centre. This has now become a high profile demonstration site for electric buses – the Queens Drive Ecohub - hosting visits from many other cities.

Stage 3 – charging network expansionThe charging network will be increased over the next 2 years, using the Office for Low Emission Vehicles Low Emission Bus Scheme Grant (LEBS), with plans for an expansion in current facilities, along with the installation of a network of rapid chargers for electric bus use at strategic points around the city. This will make the whole operation more efficient and flexible, bringing future operational cost savings of around £200k p.a. for an additional investment of £1.2m.

The new BYD buses come equipped with state–of-the-art telemetry systems, which will also be retrofitted to the Optare buses in the near future. These provide detailed information about the vehicle (location, battery range remaining, use of regenerative braking etc.) and will allow more efficient future service operations and detailed feedback on driver performance.

In recognition of the achievements of the first stage of the project it was awarded Gold in the UK Bus Awards Environment category in 2015.

The FutureBy January 2017, electric buses will run on nearly all of Nottingham City Council’s Link Bus Services - a network of routes to workplaces, health and education sites and district centres, with six million trips a year. The remaining three services will be converted to electric by 2018 using existing buses, following increased efficiencies resulting from the planned expansion in the charging network in 2017.

The partnership with Nottingham Community Transport has now gained significant experience in this emerging area, with Nottingham being one of the foremost electric bus cities in Europe. It hasn’t been easy being an early adopter of such cutting-edge technology, but the partnership has now achieved a reliable electric bus network, in close collaboration with Redferns, Optare, APT Controls, Circontrol and BYD. Redferns of Mansfield provide the key local engineering input, including full servicing and warranty work for both bus types.

It is hoped that other bus operators and contractors within Nottingham will make use of this charging network and local expertise. Nottinghamshire County Council has recently confirmed it will be purchasing some electric buses for its fleet. Other large contractors, such as the universities are well placed to follow suit.

Nottingham is now putting electric buses at the heart of upcoming demonstration corridor schemes. In October 2016 it commenced construction of an ‘Eco Expressway’ to the east of the City Centre, incorporating one of the BYD park and ride services on an expanding ‘growth’ corridor for retail, light industry and housing. This Expressway will include 5km of priority bus lanes to improve journey times and reliability of the electric bus service.

The priority lanes will also be open for use by any Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (ULEV) in order to stimulate the uptake of ULEVs within Nottingham. The bus lanes are programmed to become operational by the end of 2017, together with improvements to bus stops, pedestrian crossings points and bus priority at signals.

In addition, the city council will shortly be consulting on plans to introduce a low emission bus zone over the next three years, taking in over 100 bus stops and two bus stations across the city centre. This will aim to set a minimum entry standard of Euro 5 by 2018 and Euro 6 by 2020, with ultra-low emission standards for certain sensitive areas with high pedestrian use.

For more information or to ask about our technical visits, please contact our Public Transport team e: public.transport@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

Electric Bus Charging Infrastructure This electric bus charging infrastructure is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 646511

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Nottingham’s linkbus network

Meadows WayNotts County F.C.

Key bus stop. Places of interest are shown in red

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Version 10.0 ©2005 Nottingham City Council

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locallinks L10, L11, L14 going electric 2017

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West BridgfordTown Centre

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Regatta Way

Greythorne DriveSouth Notts College

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Stanhome Square

RuddingtonGreen

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Rivergreen

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Lark Hill Village

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High RoadCentral College

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