Town service would be ‘ideal place to start’ for electric buses
THE TOWN service bus service which loops around Lerwick would be the “ideal” candidate for electrification.
Shetland Islands Council’s (SIC) future energy and climate change manager Claire Ferguson highlighted the route’s flat nature and lower speeds as reasons why it would suit electric buses.
It comes after the SIC undertook a government-funded trial of a 27-seat electric bus last year.
This appeared to show that electric buses are “technically feasible” in Shetland but there are a range of barriers, including the high cost of the vehicles and constrained electricity grid charging.
Another issue is the lack of electric bus servicing and maintenance available in Shetland, Ferguson told Shetland News.
She said the results of the electric bus trial are being fed into future transport planning.
But Ferguson highlighted the town service bus as an “ideal place to start” if local bus services were going to be decarbonised.
It runs Monday to Saturday and tends to loop around the town via the Esplanade, with the south service going out to Sound and the north one reaching Hoofields and the college.
When asked if an electric bus on the town service route would be likely, Ferguson said it would need the SIC to work with bus operators.
“It would be the first of the routes that we would look at, but even with that, because of the servicing and the maintenance, there’s still quite a lot that would need to be sorted out to get to the point,” she said.
Bus contracts are issued every five years, with new timetables coming into effect later this month under new contracts.
“There’s lots of information that’s been taken from [the trial] that will be looked at over the next five years, so by the time time we come to the five-year contract we’ll be in a good position to do something with that when it comes decarbonisation,” Ferguson said.
“But in the meantime we’ll be working with the bus operators to see what could be transitioned over.”
Environment and transport committee chair councillor Moraig Lyall previously said Shetland’s transport partnership ZetTrans will use the learning from the electric bus trial to inform a new public and school transport decarbonisation plan.
This plan would form part of the regional transport strategy delivery plan for 2026-28.
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