My questions concern the zero emission buses funded through the Department for Transport’s Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) programme.
1. How many zero emission buses has the authority funded under the ZEBRA programme, and how many of those have entered passenger service?
20 buses with ZEBRA funding have entered service in Devon. A further 111 are expected.
2. At each depot where those buses are based, has a permanent grid connection for charging been energised? Where it has, please give the date it was energised. Where it has not, please give the date energisation is currently expected.
No depots have had this yet. The depots involved are expected to be energised in the next few months.
3. Has the authority, or any operator on the authority’s behalf, used diesel or HVO generators to charge any of those buses, and if so at which depots and between which dates?
No action regarding using generators has been undertaken by or on behalf of the authority.
4. Please provide the total amount paid for the hire, purchase, fuelling or running of any such generators, both by the authority itself and, where this has been reported to the authority, by the operator.
Where the authority holds this information because an operator has reported it, please provide it on that basis and say so.
The authority has not spent any money on generators, nor have we been informed of the costs of doing so by any operators.