The Department for Transport has celebrated the successful launch of Britain’s latest hydrogen bus fleet, which completed an impressive journey from the depot gates to approximately where the depot gates end before drivers realised the nearest refuelling station is in Aberdeen.
The £8.4 million pilot scheme, rolled out across five English cities simultaneously, features state-of-the-art vehicles capable of travelling up to 300 miles on a single tank. None of the five cities currently possess a hydrogen refuelling station.
“This represents a transformative moment for British public transport,” said Malcolm Peters, the Transport Secretary’s Under-Secretary for Aspirational Vehicles. “We’ve invested heavily in the buses themselves. The fuel infrastructure was always going to be more of a Phase Two situation. Possibly Phase Three.”
Brighton and Hove’s fleet of four hydrogen buses has been parked in a specially designated bay since delivery in January. The bay is located 0.3 miles from the city’s proposed hydrogen hub, which received planning permission last week and is expected to break ground by 2027, pending a judicial review and the identification of funds.
Local authorities were reportedly informed that existing diesel infrastructure could be “easily adapted” for hydrogen refuelling. This has proved technically accurate in the sense that anything is easy if you have £2.3 million per station and eighteen months.
“The buses are magnificent,” said Jennifer Kowalski, fleet manager for Manchester’s transport network. “Extremely quiet. Comfortable seating. They’ve been especially reliable when stationary. We’ve been running them on diesel for now, which rather defeats the object but does allow them to move.”
The buses can theoretically be refuelled using mobile hydrogen tankers, which must themselves travel from one of the UK’s fourteen hydrogen stations. The nearest station to Manchester is in Sheffield. The tanker runs on diesel.
Transport for West Midlands has taken a different approach, using their hydrogen buses exclusively for promotional photoshoots and councillor ribbon-cutting ceremonies. The buses have appeared in six press releases and achieved a combined operational mileage of forty-one metres, all within camera frame.
“Range anxiety is a myth perpetuated by pessimists,” said Peters. “These buses have excellent range. It’s the geography that’s the problem. If we could somehow bring the hydrogen stations closer to the buses, ideally to where the buses actually are, we’d have a world-beating system.”
The Department has announced £12 million in additional funding for a feasibility study into potential hydrogen infrastructure locations. The study will take two years and be conducted by a consultancy firm whose previous transport experience includes a bicycle-sharing scheme that placed all the bikes at the top of a hill.
Meanwhile, the buses remain parked. They look, by all accounts, very modern.