We’re committed to contributing to a greener Scotland by reducing emissions from our services and making our operations as efficient as possible.
We’re always looking for new ways to innovate and improve on what we’re doing.
Each year we have a committed obligation to spend £100,000 through our Sustainability Innovations Fund. This money is spent on research and development of innovative solutions to improve the sustainability performance of the railway.
A couple of our latest projects:
Fuel additives
In 2019 we conducted one of the most comprehensive fuel additive tests in UK rail. EcoClean is a fuel additive or ‘detergent’ that cleans engines, injectors & fuel systems, providing benefits, most notably fuel economy & emissions improvements.
During 2020 we worked hard to gain approvals to proceed with implementation and we conducted a live trial at one of our depots. The trial was a success and we are delighted to now be using EcoClean across our fleet.
It is projected that the use of the additive will deliver a 3% reduction in our diesel usage with further associated savings in CO2e, methane and nitrous oxides. By the end of March 2022, we expect to save around 1.5 million litres of diesel, 4400 tonnes of Carbon, 50 tonnes of Nitrogen Dioxide and 5 tonnes of Methane.
LED lighting
We anticipate many delegates will be travelling by train and alighting at Exhibition Centre Station in Glasgow, for the planned COP 26 climate change conference. The lighting at the station was non LED, with simple on/off controls. Wishing to ensure that Scotland’s Railway presents an innovative environment to welcome visitors, we recently installed intelligent LED lighting.
Instead of always having full lighting on at all times of the day, we can light areas that require lighting to minimise the waste. Each light in the station can be individually controlled, dimmed or brightened and monitored using an app.
This new system will reduce our energy usage by at least 50% and will contribute to Scotland’s Railway decarbonisation agenda.
What you can do
We’re always looking for innovative ideas. If you have any ideas that you would like to contribute to the team or would like to chat about what we do, please get in touch with at [email protected]