Arriva adds new electric buses to London routes

Bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis has delivered the first of 30 new electric buses to Arriva London, which will operate them on Transport for London (TfL) routes across the city. They'll initially be deployed on the SL6 Superloop route, which connects the outskirts of London with the city centre.

The 12 Enviro400EV double deckers are Alexander Dennis’ first contribution to the TfL fleet, and will operate a service between West Croydon and Russell Square. These will soon be joined by a further 18 units on TfL route 196. All of the buses will be operated by Arriva London, one of the service providers for TfL’s bus routes.

The Enviro400EV is Alexander Dennis’ next-gen electric bus, and features a range of new safety features in order to comply with TfL’s Bus Safety Standard including blind spot monitoring, intelligent speed assistance and an altered front geometry. They feature the Voith Electrical Drive system with 472kWh batteries, with testing demonstrating energy consumption of 0.67kWh/km. The Enviro400EVs also feature energy management and a HVAC system supplied by Grayson Thermal Systems to aid performance.

Neil Gladstone, National Account Manager for Alexander Dennis, said: “This delivery of our first TfL-specification Enviro400EV is a milestone in the roll-out of our next generation of electric buses and brings a new bus for London to the streets of the capital. Initial operation has been trouble-free and monitoring through our comprehensive AD Connect telematics shows that the buses are performing as expected, with real-world efficiency in line with the route analysis calculations we made earlier. This gives us great confidence that these next-generation Enviro400EV will enjoy long operating lives underpinned by their 14-year, one million km warranty.

Alexander Dennis has already delivered hundreds of Enviro400EVs to bus services across the UK, as both ADL and formerly ADL-BYD. This includes Coventry and Liverpool as well as other cities. The bus itself was designed to meet TfL’s stringent requirements, which apply not only to these double deckers but also the Enviro200EV which comes in a 10.4m option for this reason.

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