Find out about South West Trains 'Green Week'
Stagecoach Group has launched a major drive last week (31 May – 4 June) to help Britain go green, with a week of environmental awareness activities taking place across its bus and rail businesses, including South West Trains. Click here for more information on Stagecoach Green Week.
South West Trains takes environmental responsibilities very seriously and we have worked hard to improve our environmental performance. Each year we identify a number of challenging environmental objectives and targets aimed at maintaining the progress we have made to date. Here's some of the things we've been doing:
Regenerative Braking
This year we're investing £2.2 million in a major regenerative (regen) braking project to save energy and make our trains 'greener'. Energy produced by a standard train braking is currently lost, but the regen braking system returns electricity to the third rail system, allowing nearby trains to draw on the electrical supply. The initiative when fully implemented is expected to save 15 million kWh of electricity annually, enough to power more than 3,500 UK homes for an entire year! We already have some regen-enabled 458 units in passenger service and plan to roll-out the technology to our Desiro fleets later in the year.
Energy Efficient Stations & Depots
We're also seeking to make our stations, depots and office as energy efficient as possible by investing in a series of schemes to improve lighting and heating systems as part of the Stagecoach 'Carbon Management Programme'. This builds on the successful work we've already carried out in this area - helping Stagecoach Group to be awarded the prestigious Carbon Trust Standard for taking action on climate change by measuring and reducing our carbon emissions.
Waste & Recycling
It's not just energy we're looking to reduce though. Since starting our ‘Garbology’ recycling scheme at Wimbledon Traincare Depot we have reduced the amount of waste we send to landfill and now recycle approximately 70% of waste generated at the depot. This has led to us investing in recycling facilities at all of our traincare depots – meaning we can recycle on-train waste streams such as paper/card, plastics and glass.
We've also introduced recycling facilities at many of or stations over the past two years. For example, by segregating paper waste at Wimbledon Station we have been able to increase the amount of recycling there from approximately 3% to over 60%. Wimbledon station is one of many on our network that now have dedicated 'general waste' and 'paper waste' bins for passengers to use - meaning you can help us to recycle even more!
Cycle Hire Schemes
Taking the train is one way to reduce your individual carbon footprint. However, we've been working are working in partnership with the London Borough of Richmond, Cycle England and the Department for Transport to provide a cycle hire scheme at Richmond Station. The scheme is due to be launched in the next few weeks and compliments an existing scheme we already have in place at Waterloo Station. In addition to these schemes we're also investing heavily in providing much better cycle storage facilities across our network so that your journeys can be even 'greener'.