Today, 28 September 2017, we launched a fleet of six brand new fully electric vehicles.

At an investment of over £2.7million, the new Wrightbus Street Air single deck buses will operate on our Service 1route from Monday 2 October which carrries around 1.8 million customers each year.

The service runs through Edinburgh’s central air quality management area, and this investment cements our commitment to reduce emissions and improve air quality in the area.

The Electric Buses:

• Built in the UK, the WrightBus StreetAir single deck buses can carry up to 70 passengers.
• They are fitted with Wi-Fi, high back seats, USB charging points and LED spotlights.
• They operate on a pure electric powertrain, including an all-electric heating and cooling system, with 300 kWh of total battery energy which allows the buses to run with zero tailpipe emissions.
• The buses will charge overnight at new charging stations installed within our Annandale Street garage. Once plugged in, the vehicles take 3-4 hours to receive a full 75 kW charge and can operate for up to 130 miles on electric power.
• They are designed with regenerative braking, allowing the energy created when the vehicle is braking to be recovered back to the batteries and stored to power the vehicle exending the range of the bus.

We will be adding a further five electric vehicles to the service next year, making it the capital city’s first fully electric route.

Humza Yousaf, Minister for Transport said:

I am delighted to be able to join Lothian in the launch of their new electric buses. It is fantastic to see operators, like Lothian, investing in their fleet in a way that supports both their passengers and the environment through
new low carbon and electric vehicles.

Lothian have benefited through the Scottish Green Bus Fund and I would encourage all operators to continue to consider the various grants that the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland can provide.

Richard Hall, Managing Director of Lothian, added:

We fully support the Scottish Government and City of Edinburgh Council’s strategies to improve local air quality. The introduction of full electric buses to this route, combined with our on-going fleet replacement strategy ‘BUS2020’, ensures that we as a business are doing our part to improve air quality across the city.

These buses are not only fitted with zero emission technology, they are also quieter and smoother, offering a better customer experience for the thousands of customers who travel with us every day.

Electric Bus technology is here and we need to embrace it and ensure that it is part of our future fleet and business planning strategies, it absolutely has a place alongside traditional diesel and hybrid technologies

The delivery of these cleaner and greener buses to our fleet is central to Lothian’s ‘Bus 2020’ Environmental Strategy, which includes ongoing investments in low and zero emission buses. We aim to reduce our emissions footprint by a further 42% by 2020.

So far in 2017, Lothian has invested in:

• 15 Wrightbus Volvo B8RLE Euro 6 for East Coast Buses
• 6 Wrightbus zero emission full electric buses
• 30 Wrightbus Volvo B5TL Euro 6 for route 26
• 15 Wrightbus Volvo B5TL Euro 6 buses for Airlink
• 20 Wrightbus Volvo B5LH Hybrid Euro 6 buses for Skylink 300

Look out for them on the road next week.