Transport for Greater Manchester, Low Emission Taxi Fund

The Challenge

The UK Government has published a plan to improve the UK’s air quality in December 2015. As part of this the Office of Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) was seeking to support a transition to ultra-low emission vehicles. A £20m fund was made available for local authorities and regions to bid for funding to support taxi and private hire operators and drivers to replace diesel vehicles with electric vehicles as part of the OLEV Low Emission Taxi fund. Transport for Greater Manchester wished to understand the implications for the taxi trade in Manchester.

SYSTRA’s Role

SYSTRA led the preparation of two feasibility studies. For the first part of the study, the opinions of trade representatives were obtained from 1 to 1 sessions, while a ULEV taxi briefing day was held to gauge the level of support for a scheme and the potential barriers to implementation. A series of regulatory recommendations were identified including the needs for dedicated LEV taxi ranks, reductions in maintenance and servicing costs and the provision of educational materials and further information days.

For the second part of the study, we identified the potential locations for rapid charger locations based on taxi movement data and the use of taxi dongles on USB sticks which tracked origin and destinations. The potential impact on air quality of their introduction was assessed against a series of future growth scenarios.