It comes alongside funding from Oxfordshire County Council and from the Department for Transport’s Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas scheme. This is part of a total package of £82.5 million of funding for 159 buses for operators in Oxford, which will become one of Britain’s leading electric bus cities.
The buses are part of a package of improvements for bus travellers. Passengers will also benefit from speedier journeys with the installation of several new traffic filters in the city, an expanded zero emission zone and through additional bus priority schemes implemented by Oxfordshire County Council.
The buses are expected to save an estimated 6,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.
The order will comprise five single and 99 double-decker buses, to be manufactured in Northern Ireland by Wrightbus, and all vehicles will be fitted with free customer WiFi, at-seat USB chargers and audio-visual next stop announcement systems as standard.
Eight of the double-decker buses will be open-topped, to support the company’s popular City Sightseeing tour route, and once all buses are in service all local bus routes wholly within the Oxford urban area will be converted to zero-emission operation.
Ben Werth, chief commercial officer at Wrightbus, said: All of the buses will be manufactured and assembled at our Ballymena factory, which means support for jobs in Northern Ireland, and wider across the UK through our domestic supply chain."
Christian Schreyer, group chief executive at The Go-Ahead Group, said: “This is a step towards our goal of a zero-emission bus fleet nationwide by 2035. It’s important to remember that decarbonising vehicles is only part of the challenge – we also need to encourage more people out of their cars and onto public transport. It’s great to see Oxford taking progressive measures to prioritise buses over private cars.”