Athlone gets Ireland’s first all-electric town bus service

Early morning Sunday 29th January, a little bit of history was made in Athlone, Co Westmeath with the inaugural run of Ireland’s first ever scheduled public transport bus service operated by a battery electric fleet.

Fleet number EA1 made the first historic journey on the 08:30 departure from Bealnamulla, in the careful hands of driver Eddie Kelly.

One week completed and with almost 10,000 zero emission kilometres run, the fleet has already saved around seven tonnes of CO2 that would have been emitted from the tailpipe of the previous diesel fleet.

Ray Connolly, senior technical manager – engineering at Bus Éireann said: “Last week I posted about the many great companies that we worked with in building the buses, the infrastructure and the back-office management systems to bring this Pathfinder project to launch.”

Connolly also acknowledged the massive contribution of Bus Éireann’s internal cross-functional team, in particular the small core group of engineers and professionals that “lived and breathed” this project day in and day out over the last few years.

“Over the last few weeks our operations and maintenance teams have been preparing and readying the next phase of the project in providing the people of Athlone Town with the first electric urban bus service in Ireland each day of the week.

“I’m looking forward to seeing these buses serve the people of Athlone for many years to come,” he added.