Air-cleaning buses deployed across the UK

The Go-Ahead Group has announced that it is rolling out its unique ‘Air Filtering Bus’ nationwide to help tackle pollution in our biggest towns and cities.

The single-decker Air Filtering Buses will be deployed in six regions, Brighton, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, Plymouth and Crawley, as the group accelerates plans to have the greenest fleet of buses in the country. They re expected to be in service by the start of the Summer, following a successful launch in Southampton last year where initial tests showed that a single bus could remove as much as 65g of pollutants from the air in a 100-day period.

Each bus is fitted with an air filtering system made up of three fans on the roof that suck ultra-fine particles and dirt (known as PM10) into special filters. The buses are designed to clean the air as they drive through a city, removing up to 99.5 per cent of particulate matter which travels through it.

David Brown, Go-Ahead chief executive, said: “We want to play our part in tackling the crisis in urban air quality and show that buses can be integral to cleaning up our cities. Our air-filtering system has exceeded all expectations in how it can benefit the environment, and it builds on our track-record as operator of the UK’s greenest bus fleet. We believe the Air Filtering Bus provides a ‘quick win’ for councils as they explore initiatives such as Clean Air Zones to tackle toxic pollution.”

Go Ahead is also introducing five more of the vehicles into Southampton by early February, covering an entire city centre route.