Go-Ahead Buses on track to save over 25,000 litres of diesel this year with our solar technology!

In 2019, the international bus and rail group, Go-Ahead, decided to fit their Southampton-based operator Bluestar with 18 of our solar systems. These 10 double-decker and 8 single-decker buses aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce fuel consumption and improve vehicle maintenance with the utilisation of solar energy.

TRAILAR’s Smart Charge Controller allows for the capture of detailed telematic data, for both the solar systems performance and vehicle ancillaries. With this data, we can produce accurate fuel benefit figures for each fitted vehicle, as well as other deep insights into battery health and degradation plus more.

By utilising months of captured telematic data and processing it through our advanced ROI modelling tool, each double deck bus is predicted to obtain an annual saving of 1,507 litres of diesel, 90 litres of AdBlue and a CO2 saving of 4.04 tonnes.

Meanwhile, the single deck buses predicted an annual saving of 1,268 litres of diesel, 76 litres of AdBlue and a CO2 saving of 3.40 tonnes.

Across this small fleet of 18 buses, the Bluestar operator will benefit from a total predicted saving of over 25,000 litres of fuel, 1508 litres of Ad Blue and 67.2 tonnes of CO2.

This is equivalent to filling the bus fuel tank 91 times or charging 8,570,165 smartphones.

Jim Collins, Group Chief Engineer (Bus) at Go-Ahead Group, said:

"At Go-Ahead we're always looking to find innovative, greener transport solutions. In Southampton, we've rolled out 'air filtering buses' that clean air as they travel through the city.”

“Now, with the help of TRAILAR, we've gone one step further and been able to add solar panels to eighteen buses in our Bluestar fleet. We're really excited with the results this new technology is providing us, supporting our aims to reduce our fuel consumption, carbon emissions and improve air quality in our local communities." “TRAILAR have worked hard in ensuring the systems were fitted efficiently and are delivering the maximum benefit to our vehicles, through the telematics the systems provide us.”

TRAILAR is looking forward to working further with the Go-Ahead Group, supporting the company’s environmental agenda to combat poor air quality and pollution, in order to provide greener public transport for the UK.

Find out more about our solutions here or contact a member of our team.