Hydrogen buses in Birmingham: what is so special about the new public transport?

As part of Birmingham City Council’s Strategy for the city to reach net zero carbon by 2030, National Express has been rolling out its fleet of hydrogen powered double deckers. We take a look at what’s driving this project, and the benefits we can expect to see.

Drivers have to receive special training to drive the buses which behave differently to traditional combustion engine driven buses.

They do however run for 300km on a single tank and can be refuelled in 7 - 10 minutes. The new buses are expected to save 631kg of nitrogen oxide emissions per year, as well as prevent 1560 tonnes of carbon from going into the atmosphere.

Cllr Ian Ward, Leader of Birmingham City Council, says: “Well, climate change and the route to zero is the biggest challenge facing, not just the city of Birmingham, but facing the world.

“We’re making significant progress, we’ve got 41 projects underway at the moment on our route to zero plan, looking to decarbonize transport.”

“We’ve purchased as the city council 20 hydrogen fuel cell buses that are going to be deployed onto the network - I think the double decker buses, they’re likely to be the future, particularly in hilly terrain.

“So we’ll have those 20 deployed on the network, we’ve got a bid into government for a further 125. And we’re keen actually that we can become the location in the UK that is known for having Hydrogen buses running our highways.

“We’ve got a way to go - there are some 1600 buses running on the highway network in the city of Birmingham. So we need to be going at something like 200 buses per year or slightly over that in order to decarbonize our public transport going forward.”

David Bradford, Managing Director of National Express, says: “So what I’ve got behind me is a brand new hydrogen powered bus. There are 20 of them now running in Birmingham and the Black Country.

“When they are in operation, they emit no carbon dioxide and no pollution. They just emit water droplets. So these are state of the art. They’re revolutionary.

“There’s barely any of these on the streets of Britain. So this is a brand new development for the West Midlands. They’re the cleanest, greenest buses you can catch.

“When you catch them they’re almost silent, to sit on, smooth running - silent, quietest buses your catch. What’s great about these, not just that they’re green and clean for the environment, but also passengers love them.

“So passenger numbers on these routes are growing faster than others and the customer satisfaction of those routes is great.”

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