Derek Mackay announces new funding during a visit to First Glasgow
A further £3m is being made available from this year’s Future Transport Fund as part of the latest round of the Scottish Green Bus Fund for 2015-16.
Scottish Transport Minister Derek Mackay announced the details of this latest round of funding for public bus services during a visit to First Bus in Glasgow.
Mr Mackay said: “Increasing the number of low carbon vehicles in the Scottish fleet achieves a number of government aims – helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality by accelerating the replacement of older, more polluting vehicles.
“The newer greener vehicles can be used to attract more passengers and also benefit manufacturers by increasing demands for their more innovative products.”
Over the past five rounds of SGBF funding, Transport Scotland has provided grant funding totaling almost £13m, which has been put towards 269 new low carbon emission buses.
First in Scotland was among the operators to apply for SGBF grants and last year received total grant funding of £920k. This was used to support its purchase of 75 new vehicles (51 single-deckers and 24 double-deckers).
Test results show that running eight Euro 6 buses produces the same amount of certain exhaust emissions, including Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx) and Particulate Matter (PM), as running one bus with a Euro 5 engine.
Fiona Kerr, Managing Director of First Glasgow, said: “We’ve invested over £14m in 75 new buses this year alone, of which £7.4m is for 47 state-of-the-art green vehicles, supported already by the Scottish Government’s Green Bus Fund.
“That investment is encouraging more people to use the bus, positively impacting congestion and the city’s co2 emissions.
“The fund is a great initiative and has certainly helped First Glasgow and other operators put greener, more fuel efficient vehicles on our roads.”
