Climate change
In North America we operate over 60,000 school buses and around 7,000 transit buses. These vehicles contribute to reducing the impacts of climate change as emissions per passenger kilometre are lower than for equivalent journeys by car. However, these vehicles also contribute to emissions and we are committed to monitoring and reducing these as part of our Climate Change Strategy.
Our North American contractual environment differs from that in the UK. In First Student we own most of our vehicles but in First Transit the majority of the fleet we operate belongs to our customers.
This year we emitted an estimated 454,295 tonnes of carbon dioxide from our vehicles. This is an increase on last year due to increased mileage in First Student. In North America our business is contract-driven and our data capture systems are not yet sophisticated enough to take account of the changes. We will develop ways to take account of this within our Climate Change Strategy for North America.
We aim to operate our vehicle fleet as efficiently as possible through effective maintenance and driver training. We will continue to implement our no idling policy and tyre replacement programme to reduce fuel use.