Oxford to introduce fully-electric double-decker bus

Oxford City Council has won £1.7 million from the Department of Transport’s Clean Bus Technology Fund to introduce the first fully-electric double-decker buses to Oxford later this year.

The council will now retrofit five of its open-top sightseeing buses to become fully electric, and retrofit 78 local buses to become significantly less polluting to the Euro VI standard, with the first electric buses expected to be available later this year.

Susan Brown, leader of Oxford City Council, said: “I am delighted that this grant will enable us to introduce fully-electric buses to Oxford. Currently Oxford has air pollution levels in the city centre which are above legal levels and therefore can damage the health of Oxford’s residents and visitors.

“We are looking at all measures possible to reduce pollution in our city centre. In recent years, nitrogen dioxide levels have remained fairly constant, so we need to take more radical measures to tackle this issue. The Zero Emission Zone is one such step change, but this will help us to achieve our goal of cleaner air.”