Government cuts funding for retrofitted bus scheme

Transport secretary, Louise Haigh, has announced that the government will no longer fund bus retrofitting and will close the clean vehicle retrofit accreditation scheme.

Haigh said that during trials between 2013 and 2015 by the previous government, "retrofitting SCR technology was found to be the most effective in reducing the levels of NOX emitted from older buses. Allowing for some variation based on the Euro standard of the retrofitted bus, reduction of NOX using SCR technology in trials averaged around 90 per cent."

She added: "In 2021, the government was made aware of new evidence from Scotland suggesting that real-world emission reductions from retrofitted buses were lower than expected. 

"In 2022 a roadside monitoring campaign was commissioned to measure NOX emissions from retrofitted buses in 3 areas in England which reported in early 2023. 

"The findings were similar to those in Scotland. Government funding for bus retrofits was paused in April 2023 while further research was carried out to understand the causes of poor performance and assess the scope for improvement."

She said that research suggested that there were a number of contributing factors that were impacting the performance of retrofit buses, such as the condition of bus engines and low catalyst operating temperatures.

She added: "Moving forward, we will work with bus operators and retrofit suppliers to encourage a step change in monitoring and maintenance of retrofit systems to get the best possible performance from the retrofitted buses currently in service. This will include ensuring that buses are providing live data showing retrofit performance so that operators and depots can prioritise and target essential maintenance on the poorest performing buses. 

"Providing this data will be a condition of the buses remaining on the list of CVRAS-accredited vehicles."