Cars are greener than buses

I let a large coach out of the junction to the bus station the other day, it was empty and was belching out black fumes. Lower CO2 than cars? I smell transport policy maker BS.

By gofasterstripes on 29 December, 2011, 2:09pm

this article is ridiculous. the only reason a near empty bus creates more pollution is because it is nearly empty ! and it is empty because people are using their cars !!!!! if thirty or so people got on the bus instead of their usually single occupant car then the pollution per passenger would be far less !!!!

By cdtiman on 29 December, 2011, 7:19pm

or of course far fewer then 30. mass transit such as buses and trains will always carry more people with less pollution. but if you dont care about that or it cant take you where and when you want then take the car.

it is similar with 7 seater mpvs and suvs. they get all the stick for being wasteful yet if all seats are used then the co2 per passenger is obviously less then in a smaller car with only 1 or 2 people !

By cdtiman on 29 December, 2011, 7:23pm

Perhaps if busses turned up on time, had a nice environment for you to sit rather than graffiti everywhere and ripped seats, didn't charge you a fortune for a short journey and had more services in busy areas people would get on them more!

The local bus service where I live is awful, you never know if they are going to turn up and the amount of times the bus driver has driven past with a half empty bus... wouldn't be able to count!

By kalder88 on 30 December, 2011, 11:29am

I agree with cdtiman up to a point

I agree that the article is rubbish and the figures are due to low occupancy levels. What we need is a way to provide a viable service (not everyone has a car) which can take account of the number of people using a service. The times when I've needed to take the bus to the station for work a mini-bus would have been sufficient, yet it was a double-decker.

By aje21 on 30 December, 2011, 12:50pm

Where I live it's a half mile walk to bus stop and first bus is at 8.45 so not really a viable solution. My mate has got a motorbike and it takes him 35 mins to ride to work. In the winter he has to catch 3 buses there and 4 back with a 4.5 hour total travel time. Buses dont work outside cities

By Orange5ive on 31 December, 2011, 6:42am

What??!!

A bus can hold, say, 40 - 50 people.

Surely the point is one bus would belt out less polution than all the cars those 40 - 50 people would have driven put together if they used them instead of the bus.

One bus is bound to create more polution than one car.

By dastardly01 on 31 December, 2011, 11:16am

rushed conclusions... bad journalism

"Not only that, but Auto Express was easily able to find examples of sports cars, 4x4s, hot hatches, MPVs and even limousines that are all greener than bus travel outside of the capital."

Did AE base their verdict on "greeness" of such cars on claimed co2/km? As every AE test shows, actual real world mpg/Co2 is roughly 30-50% worse than the calimed figure, the discrepancy being bigger for the more "economical" cars - I belive the claimed mpg/co2 for commercial vehicles is far more accurate.

And what about the "hidden" pollution caused by regular maintenance of cars - oil and filter changes, tyres etc. Commercial vehicles have multiple times longer service intervals!

I agree with all the previous posts abut low occupancy, and the vicious circle of low occupancy - low quality of service.

By mko_20vt on 2 January, 2012, 8:23am

What rubbish

The wilful ignorance displayed by this article is astonishing and Auto Express/Jon Morgan should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

By roddenshaw on 3 January, 2012, 10:38am

Buses dont work out side of towns becouse the only way they can work is to run longer hours and more days so people can use them to actually get were they need to be on time like work etc but there would not enough people to fill the buses becouse they would have to run so often therefore creating more co2

By astra300 on 3 January, 2012, 9:24pm

Arithmetic

What the posters above are not considering is that even if you doubled to occupancy of buses, you'd still be producing more CO2 than, for example, a Skoda Fabia Greenline, which could still carry another 3 passengers.

We ran the previous Greenline Fabia and averaged 71mpg, after it was run in, so you can get better than the government figures.

By TheGoatboy on 4 January, 2012, 7:58pm