We’re gradually changing our national fleet of 9,700 cars and vans to zero-emission electric vehicles.
It’s part of our commitment to running a greener and more sustainable railway.
Greener and more efficient
We expect to lower our carbon emissions by about 47,000 tonnes each year once our road fleet is fully electric. It will lead to cleaner air for you and a more sustainable railway for everyone.
It’s also an important part of our work to become a net-zero carbon emissions railway by 2050.
James Rooney, head of road fleet at Network Rail, said: “While rail is one of the greenest ways to travel, we need to match that in the way we work.
“By making our vehicles more environmentally friendly, we’re supporting our sustainability targets and moving towards a better, greener future.”
We also hope an electric road fleet will be cost effective to run and maintain – helping us become a more efficient and do more with the savings we make.
Transforming our fleet
This work started in 2022 and by January 2023, we’d installed the first electric vehicle chargers at some of our work sites, and began trialling the first electric vehicles.
Following its success, we’ve been gradually rolling this programme our across our regions. So far, we’ve switched 280 vehicles in our road fleet to electric. And we plan to continue making this switch until we have a fully electric road fleet.
Charging points
Part of this work involves making sure our staff can charge the electric vehicles seamlessly without worrying about running out of charge. And we’re exploring different ways to do this.
We’ve installed 269 electric vehicle charging points across 45 of our sites across Britain. We’re also looking into other suitable sites on our railway to install more charging points. Plus, we’ve given charging cards to drivers to access public chargers across the country.
A small number of colleagues are also taking part in a home charging trial. Charging points were installed at their home address so they could charge the vehicles there. This may help give our staff additional flexibility and reduce our reliance on public charging points and charging at our work sites.
Switching thousands of our road vehicles to electric is complex job that we’re doing gradually. It may take years, but our step-by-step approach ensures we’re doing it right. We want to make sure the electric vehicles we’re switching our fleet to are fully suitable for the vehicles they are replacing. So we can continue using our road fleet to give you a better railway.
