Decker Is Cooking on Biogas as a First

Interest in biogas-fuelled buses has grown recently thanks to Scania and ADL’s partnership to develop the Enviro400 CBG. The first are with Reading Buses and we find out how they perform.

The jury remains out on where the bus industry goes post-diesel, but Reading Buses’ mind was made up a long time ago. Gas is the answer as far as it is concerned, and earlier this year it became the world’s first operator to place a Euro 6 biogas-fuelled double decker into service.

Reading now has five of these Scania N 280 UDs with Alexander Dennis (ADL) Enviro400 CBG bodywork on the road, and Chief Engineer John Bickerton says that it would surprise nobody at the operator if the type wins this year’s tendering round for new double-deckers.

“The biogas double-deckers have performed brilliantly so far and drivers love them, although we currently have three diesel Scania Enviro equivalents on loan and they are doing very well too.

“From the cab there is little difference between diesel and biogas examples, although in the saloon the quieter gas engine means that gearbox noise is audible; in a diesel, it is not.”

Reading Buses already has a number of biogas-fuelled single-deck Scania Enviro buses, and John says that their fuel consumption is broadly comparable with the double-deckers’, at around 2km per kilogramme of gas. Gearbox optimisation work is still to be done on the double deckers, which should improve returns slightly. Scania says that it is committed to biogas buses as a major component of its range at Euro 6, and it recently disclosed that requests for quotes for gas now account for 50% of operator interest.