Shepherd’s Bush depot goes electric

RATP Dev’s Shepherd’s Bush garage in West London has morphed into an advanced, smart electric bus operating centre.

The depot has been delivered 36 BYD ADL electric buses, one of the joint electric-bus manufacturing operation’s largest orders in London. The single-deckers are 10.8m BYD ADL Enviro200 EVs. The partners also secured an order for 37 charging units and associated infrastructure for the new vehicles.

Preparing Shepherd’s Bush garage for the electric buses involved a further collaboration with BYD and ADL’s strategic partner, SSE, to ensure the installation of the electric vehicle infrastructure. SSE installed vital electric power and data cables and wiring at the garage.

With a fleet of some 1,200 buses, RATP Dev London operates 70 bus routes across the London network. Its Shepherd’s Bush depot houses the 36 buses for TfL routes C1 and 70, which are being converted to full electric operation following the company’s success in winning these routes through TfL’s tendering process.

BYD installed its Smart Charging Management System, an automatic solution that should allow the depot to simultaneously charge all the site’s buses over night with minimal supervision. The system is designed to remove the risks associated with manually charging buses and also cuts down on the manpower required over a night shift, in turn reducing operating costs. Construction on the depot began in June. RATP Dev said the project was efficiently completed without compromising day-to-day operations in the garage.

RATP Dev aims to progressively turn Shepherd’s Bush into a depot with an all-electric fleet, to make it the company’s first zero-emissions bus garage in London. The operator already runs four all-electric buses out of Hounslow, and operates 246 hybrid buses within London.

The renewed Shepherd’s Bush facility was officially opened by Catherine Guillouard, Chairwoman and CEO of RATP Group, Laurence Batlle, CEO of RATP Dev and TfL Commissioner Mike Brown.