The Royal Borough of Greenwich has bagged a top environmental award at the Local Authority Plant and Vehicles annual Future Fleet Forum awards.

The Royal Greenwich Fleet Development team won an award for 'Most sustainable fleet management department', beating entrants from all over the UK.

Improving safety and reducing environmental impact

The Royal Borough has a large fleet of vehicles, and its management has undergone a number of changes and enhancements over the past few years. The aim is to go beyond what the law requires to improve safety and reduce the environmental impact.

The borough contends with some of the most heavily polluted roads in London that are in excess of the legal limits, and measures are bring introduced to combat this.

The borough is investing over £17 million over the next four years to ensure that its fleet is fitted with the newest technology and achieves high standards of safety and environmental performance.

By the end of February 2018, seven new fleet management policies covering areas such as dangerous and specialist goods and anti-idling will have been introduced.

The Royal Borough is also working with a number of partners, including Jaguar Land Rover, TRL, Bosch and DG Cities, to provide data for modelling autonomous vehicles as part of the MOVE_UK project. The research aims to reduce the time taken to test automated driving systems and bring them to market.

A cleaner, greener, healthier place

Councillor Danny Thorpe, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Sustainability, said: "This is such a proud moment for Greenwich. We're determined to do all we can to make Royal Greenwich a cleaner, greener, healthier place for our residents.

Our Greener Greenwich Strategy, launched in 2016, includes creating more electric charging points across the borough, and a number of other initiatives to tackle air quality."

'This award recognises the work we're doing'

Councillor Jackie Smith, Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Environment, said: "I'm delighted that our fleet team has won such an esteemed award. We're dedicated to understanding the impacts of autonomous driving technologies and the opportunities they'll provide to local residents and businesses in the future.

This award recognises the work we're doing to ensure that our fleet is meeting the challenges of environmental impact, and leading the way in road safety innovations."

Dedicated to going electric

Together with Magnetic Systems Technology and DG Cities, Greenwich helps leads the research of the first fully converted 26 tonne electric refuse collection vehicle (eRCV). The pioneering project aims to demonstrate the capability of the design whilst also producing zero emissions, reducing noise and extending the life of the asset, which was first registered in 2009.

The Royal Borough aims to only use electric vans from 2018. The current programme will replace up to 18 electric vehicles by the end of 2018. These will be charged at the 20 newly installed charging points at the main operational depot.