maynes embark on the road to netzero

In the current social and political environment everyone is under pressure to reduce their carbon footprint and do their bit for the environment. Coach hire is proven to be one of the most environmentally friendly ways to travel, and is serving as an effective method of reducing carbon to help tackle the current climate emergency.

At Maynes Coaches we are actively working to reduce our carbon emissions throughout our entire fleet. One of the ways in which we manage to do this is by keeping as energy efficient as possible by subjecting our fleet to regular maintenance from our in-house engineers to ensure potential faults are eliminated. Keeping the vehicles well-maintained also increases fuel consumption efficiency.

Our fleet already have one of the lowest levels of carbon emissions within the UK industry, we understand the importance of reducing our carbon footprint. With a standard car fitting four people and one of our standard vehicles fitting around 40 people, that’s 10 cars on the road to 1 coach. So, if you opt to travel on-board one of our coaches with your family and friends, or book one of our coaches to transport your clients that makes a significant difference on YOUR carbon footprint and the environment.

According to the Department of Transport and their Energy & Environment Statistics, cars and taxis emit 69.7 million tonnes of CO2, that’s 18% of all domestic emissions. Where, coaches emit 3.4 million tonnes of CO2 – a mere 1% of all domestic emissions. Coach travel is a simple solution to reducing your carbon footprint, and at Maynes Coaches we are proud to do our part by helping individuals and companies make a difference.

Our company operates a continual fleet regeneration programme and purchase the most environmentally friendly vehicles, therefore helping to reduce our Emissions and Carbon Footprint. All our vehicles have been compliant with the strictest tier of emissions categorisation for several years and our fleet is fully Euro 6 Emission. All our coaches have a comprehensive Vehicle Tracking and Telematics system via Webfleet Technology and Telematics – this allows us to monitor any unnecessary idling and drivers driving style, therefore further helping to reduce our Carbon footprint and give a full carbon impact report for every journey. We also utilise this information during our in-house training sessions to optimise our driver’s performance and ensure that we are upholding our responsibility of lowering our emissions and carbon footprint.

Maynes are also a member of ‘Green Tourism’ and Eco Stars, we are continually working with our partners to ensure that our fleet is as eco-efficient as possible.

We have been across all our business parts and depots, building towards future steps, and into NetZero, Coaching is already one of the greenest ways to travel, and our fleet have one of the most environmentally conscious and sustainable ways towards improving our future world.

The Scottish Government have been working hard as a world leader to bring the coaching industry into the forefront of future thinking and helping create industry development. With ongoing research and development, case studies and Bus and coach operators working in collaboration with our trade body CPT to develop the industry fit for future generations.

With this in mind, we have had one of the world’s first NetZero Fully Electric coach types with us on demo in 2023, the coach was given to us to try out here in Moray, as we looked build our company towards the zero emission future. With our land acquisition at our Buckie depot, and expansion work afoot , the development and depot will be then be purposely planned out for us to use Next-generation Ultra Low Emission and NetZero fleets, we also have been worked closely on plans for Hydrogen Coach, this sees us now working with the Speyside Hydrogen Project, these plans will bring future fuels to us in the years ahead, should these become available for long distance coach work our depot will be ready for this.

Phase 2 of ScotZEB, via the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland, which opened to applications on 15 May 2023, was designed to provide capital funding to forward-thinking companies within the bus and coach market and help make zero-emission vehicles the default choice for all operators of tourist and private-hire coaches who could all potentially benefit. The Scottish government is supporting bus and coach operators, manufacturers, local authorities, financiers, and the energy sector to make the market for zero-emission vehicles and infrastructure, commercially self-sustaining. This means that operators can run and operate on its own without further funding from the government.

Maynes Coaches was one of the instigating company’s to bring coach to the funding process, during 2020 with Director Kevin Mayne working towards a full inclusion of coach into the future funding stream, with Transport Scotland. Kevin also spoke in depth with current First Minister John Swinney about coach and the industry at Holyrood. Maynes have always been in the forefront of future technology and industry development for decades. https://www.busandcoachbuyer.com/winners-announced…/

During the funding stream process Maynes worked closely with Bluemarbl to create a document BluMarbl-Maynes-Coaches-Report-1.pdf to see if the case study and viability will work for our company. After successfully lodging the study, this gave Maynes a future lead position into becoming one of the first operators developing zero emission coach fleets in Scotland. The development of the consortium with Zenobē is driven by small and large bus and coach operators from across Scotland again Maynes being one of the first and leading operators in the creation of the consortium. More on this here https://www.route-one.net/…/coach-and-bus-operators…/

we look forward to working closely with Zenobē and Transport Scotland in the years ahead.

Maynes plans are extensive and futuristic, with the new development of the yard expansion giving way to more space for the charging and powering network, whilst also giving space for 10 charging points at our Buckie depot, solar power harvesting and internal changing and storage to assist in powering the company forward, Maynes also have planned double charging facilities in our Elgin and Orkney depots for the fleet additions going forward. The expansion also gives secure parking for 20 coaches and more than 25 cars with space for future Hydrogen development in the years ahead.

Working closely with manufacturers EVM, Maynes created a EVcoach version of a sprinter to full coaching spec, Maynes have initially ordered 2 of these, the first to be delivered early 2025, a first initial delivery batch of an order for 10 full size EVcoaches will see 3 Yutong TC12E coaches coming during early 2025 ,and the remaining 7 full size EVcoaches being delivered late 2025 and early 2026. This will see approx. 1, 3rd of the Maynes fleet of 45 coaches moving to zero emissions within the next 2 years.

Maynes also continue to work locally and globally on the Hydrogen step and hope as the last EV Coaches arrive to us, that a new Hydrogen mainstream coach might be in the pipeline too. We are pleased to show you our depot plans going forward, the charging layout of the Buckie Depot, and our future livery layout for our EV Coaches.

More from the official press release here https://www.gov.scot/news/new-zero-emission-buses/

For a full and comprehensive guide to the ways in which Maynes are environmentally conscious and how we can help you reduce your carbon footprint, read the “Our Carbon Impact” document that is attached below.