Electric vehicle fleet and battery storage specialist Zenobe has provided operator National Express with eight electric double-decker buses for the shuttle service to the Glastonbury music festival.
The buses will take passengers from Bristol Bus and Coach Station directly to Worthy Farm, with each bus expected to make the journey three times a day and providing the festival’s first sustainable shuttle service.
Steven Meersman, co-founder and director of Zenobe, said: ‘It marks an important step in the decarbonisation of the festivals and events industry, where huge numbers of people flock to remote locations for just a few days but to date have not had sustainable ways of getting there.
‘It’s an innovative solution for sustainable festival and events travel which we look forward to introducing to the sector.’
Zenobe will also set up a pop-up charging station, so that National Express can charge the vehicles near the festival site, rather than travelling to a central bus depot.
This addresses the issue of limited charging infrastructure in remote locations, which Zenobe has called ‘one of the biggest barriers’ to having electric transport services at festivals.
Tom Berry, zero emissions vehicle specialist at National Express, said: ‘It’s great to ‘be able to work with Zenobe to introduce more sustainable means of public transport for our customers and by having access to pop-up chargers on site for the first time, we’re able to operate our festival services more efficiently - leading the charge in cleaner and greener travel solutions.’
National Highways is advising drivers in the South West to allow extra time and plan their journeys over the festival weekend.
It said motorways and major A roads leading to the Glastonbury Festival are likely to be busy between Wednesday and Friday this week, as people make their way to Worthy Farm, as well as on Monday, when the festival ends.
John Ingram, National Highways’ emergency planner for the South West, said: ‘We’re reminding road users to plan ahead for Glastonbury – around 200,000 people are expected to attend this year’s festival and roads leading to the event are likely to be very busy.’
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