What's New

Coventry will receive £50 million to fund 297 all-electric buses after the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Board gave its final approval to the proposal. With a target date of 2025, this will mean that the West Midlands city will be the first in the country to host all-electric buses.

The Road Haulage Association (RHA) has released research into the impact of Covid-19 related unemployment on the UK’s top 40 towns and cities which had the highest proportion of tourism employees in 2019. This includes popular coach holiday destinations such as the Lake District, Derbyshire Dales and Devon.

Responding to the news that Greater Manchester will take its buses back into public control, the TUC’s Better Buses for Yorkshire campaigner, Gareth Forest, has suggested that this should be the signal for similar moves on the other side of the Pennines.

The UK’s leading supplier of gas to the road transport sector has doubled the sales of biomethane across its commercial vehicle refuelling network in the first quarter of 2021, compared to the same period in 2020.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has told operators that they will be able to report serious incidents with greater ease through a new online form available on computer, tablet or smartphone. After working with the industry, it has created the new PSV112 form which can be found — here.

Measuring carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from commercial road transport only at the tailpipe, depending on the region, could double the true carbon picture in future fuel scenarios. This is the view of the International Road Transport Union (IRU) which argues that heavy-duty commercial vehicles, including coaches and trucks, emit just 950 million tonnes of CO2 annually at the tailpipe, using the tank-to-wheel standard, about 2.5% of global emissions.

Representing over 20,000 bus workers in London, Unite the union has strongly welcomed a decision by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to order a moratorium on bus operators in the capital introducing remote sign on procedures.

The roadmap is on track and easements planned for 12 April can go ahead, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has confirmed.

Up to £120 million will be made available through a new scheme which will allow local transport authorities to bid for funding to purchase zero-emission buses in order to reduce the carbon emissions from their local public transport and improve air quality.

Planned to start in June 2021, Irish Ferries will introduce a new service on the Dover–Calais route when it transfers the Isle of Inishmore to the route. Additional capacity will be added in the following months.