Public Transport: Exhaust Emissions

(asked on 17th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of jobs that could be created in (a) research and development, (b) manufacturing and (c) other sectors as a result of Government investment in low emission forms of public transport.


Answered by
Rachel Maclean Portrait
Rachel Maclean
This question was answered on 22nd June 2020

The Department has not made an estimate of the number of jobs in research and development, manufacturing and other sectors that could be created across all forms of low emission public transport as a result of Government investment. However, we recognize that transport has a key role to play in the economy reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions and we are developing an ambitious plan to accelerate the de-carbonisation of transport.

In February, the Government announced plans for investment in 4,000 zero emission buses, as part of a £5 billion funding package for buses and cycling. This investment supports the Government's decarbonisation plans and the bus sector and will help to stimulate a green economic recovery from COVID-19. There are a number of UK-based bus manufacturing companies well-placed to benefit from this investment. The recent £48m Ultra Low Emission Bus competition allocated 88% of funding to UK companies.

The Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) has also designed and funded a series of R&D competitions with Innovate UK, focusing on demonstrating low and zero emission road transport technology, strengthening UK industrial and supply chain capability. These projects include public transport applications. For example, OLEV has funded a project to develop a new, highly efficient, zero emission bus with lower total cost of ownership and maximisation of passenger numbers.

For rail transport, the use of electrification and new technologies to decarbonise the railway will create long-term employment opportunities, and previous electrification projects have supported hundreds of UK jobs.

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