Go North East celebrates its green credentials on Clean Air Day

It’s Clean Air Day today (17 June), and Go North East is celebrating its commitment and contribution to improving the region’s air quality and repeating its reassurance that bus travel is safe, clean and essential to reducing congestion and air pollution.

The region’s largest bus company cares about clean air and is on a mission to bring low emissions to the region with the latest technology.

The company has already made big improvements in recent years, and in November the company introduced game-changing electric buses on its Voltra 53 and 54 services that operate across Gateshead and Newcastle.

Renowned YouTuber, Geoff Marshall, featured the state-of-the-art electric buses which bring a bus of the future experience for customers just last week on his channel, with the video already surpassing 100,000 views.

By its very nature, bus travel has a low carbon footprint and in addition to the electric buses, Go North East is doing everything it can to make its fleet even greener, with 61% now meeting even better enhanced environmentally friendly standards and more on the way.

Following the early success of the electric buses, the bus company is looking to introduce more zero-emission buses in the coming years, with its electric bus micro depot already capable of accommodating 30 electric buses.

Go North East will also be shortly trialling an electric double-deck bus at its Chester-le-Street depot, to help shape any future investment in the best technology.

For those planning their journeys, Go North East’s website and new app displays how much you can reduce your footprint by when travelling by bus.

For example, a journey from Chester-le-Street to Newcastle (around 14 miles) with Go North East would save 2,665g of CO2 compared to driving – that's the equivalent of watching TV for 277 hours, keeping a light bulb on for 250 hours, or charging your mobile phone 11,244 times.

Stephen King, commercial director at Go North East, said: “Our fleet is already jam-packed with high-specification environmentally friendly buses, and we’re doing everything we can to progress and make our fleet even greener.

“Our buses are clean, safe and comfy – embracing public transport is a vital step required to improve air quality and reduce congestion.”