York City Sightseeing fleet now fully electric

Transdev’s fleet of double deckers on its City Sightseeing service in York is now fully electric. Five vehicles have been retrofitted by Magtec to run completely on electricity. The operator put the world’s first retrofitted electric-powered double-decker onto the service last year (see B&CB 1293, 12 September 2014), after a share of DfT’s Clean Bus Technology Fund was successfully bid for.

Transdev is working in partnership with City of York Council, who were awarded £475,000 to convert the five existing diesel vehicles to fully electric. The Council was originally awarded £75,433 of government funding to convert the first 15 year old bus to electric power last year. Reductions of approximately £15,000 to £20,000 in yearly operating costs should be achieved for each bus following their switch to electric. The retrofitted vehicles should eliminate 33tonnes of CO2 emissions and 535kg of nitrous oxide annually. Their batteries take eight hours to fully charge, allowing them to go for 90 miles before they need plugging in again.
A report from the launch event will appear in next week’s issue.