Cleaner, greener bus fleet for Kingston

Transport for London has confirmed all of its bus routes through Kingston now meet the Euro VI compliance requirements, bar one vehicle which will be retrofitted by the end of October. 

Euro VI is the latest standard in diesel engines, which dramatically reduces emissions of harmful pollutants including nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbons (THC and NMHC).

Kingston Council is committed to creating a cleaner, greener borough and in November last year held a citizens’ assembly on clean air. Assembly members listened to expert evidence and one of their recommendations was for ‘urgent investment in greener and accessible transport and infrastructure for all'.

Councillor Hilary Gander, Kingston Council’s Portfolio Holder for Environment and Sustainable Transport said:

“This is wonderful news for our borough with the vast improvements this makes to the quality of the air we all breathe.

“I have been campaigning for a long time to get low emission buses. Cromwell Road and Eden Street in particular have suffered from poor air quality as a result of high polluting vehicles and everyone who lives, works and studies in Kingston deserves better. A clean bus fleet serving 34 routes is a major milestone and a huge endorsement of the work our citizens’ assembly members did last year.”

In addition to the introduction of greener public transport, we continue to invest in a range of programmes and initiatives designed to support other sustainable modes of travel. These include:

• Launching the ‘try before you bike’ scheme with Peddle My Wheels, to help make bikes more accessible and affordable to anyone who lives, works or studies in the borough
• Installing 20 community cycle hangars to ensure bikes can be stored safely
• Continuing to implement our award-winning Go Cycle route network
• Continuing to provide cycle skill training courses in the borough
• Continuing to provide children’s Bikeability course at schools in the borough
• Teaming up with HumanForest to bring a fleet of new electric bikes to the borough in 2021

And, this year we have introduced a number of streetspace measures to support pedestrians and cyclists, making active travel safer and easier than ever before for our residents. New schemes include:

• Temporary cycle lanes and widened footways in a number of high footfall areas
• Three temporary School Streets
• Three temporary Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

To find out more about the work the council is doing to improve the local environment and air quality please visit the website.

Live air quality data can be viewed on the London Air Quality Network website.