Electrifying Translink

20/06/2024 Ashleigh Sinclair Features

The first of Translink’s latest delivery of electric buses was handed over on 30 May at the Wrightbus factory in Ballymena. JONATHAN WELCH

Translink has started taking delivery of its latest batch of 100 Wrightbus electric buses for Metro, Foyle Metro and Ulsterbus routes, reports Jonathan Welch

When talking about major operators in the UK, it’s easy to think of the big groups, or maybe Transport for London or Transport for Greater Manchester and forget to look across the Irish sea to Northern Ireland’s Translink, the trading name of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company. The publicly-owned corporation operates bus and rail services, including Belfast’s Metro-branded city services which wear a pink version of its corporate livery, Foyle Metro services in the city of Derry~Londonderry, which carry a red livery, and blue-coloured Ulsterbus services which cover the remainder of the country. Translink also operates Northern Irish rail services, as well as Goldliner-branded regional express coaches.

Translink is a large operation: its buses and trains facilitate over 1.5m passenger journeys per week on around 12,500 services operated by a fleet of 1,400 coaches, buses and trains. Between them, they cover some 44 million miles per year, supported by around 3,800 members of staff. The operator has already begun its zero-emission journey, and has both electric and hydrogen buses in service. By June 2023, it celebrated 1.5 million miles of emission-free bus travel in Belfast, helping towards its target of a net-zero fleet by 2040.

With over 100 zero-emission vehicles in service by that date, Translink currently has around 150 zero-emission buses in

its fleet. It is continuing to take delivery of more, including building on its a city-wide bus renewal project for Foyle Metro services in Derry~Londonderry, making it among the first cities in the UK and Ireland to operate a fully zero-emission urban bus service.