EEAST becomes first ambulance service to commit to using new tech to make air cleaner
The technology can turn off idling engines when it's safe to do so - cutting fuel use and reducing emissions
The East of England Ambulance Service (EEAST) has become the first ambulance service in the country to commit to using a new technology to make air cleaner.
Since February, EEAST's fleet team, which operates across Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, has been piloting an NHS England-approved anti-idling system known as ACETECH™ Eco-Run.
The technology can turn off idling engines when it's safe to do so - cutting fuel use and reducing emissions.
A test vehicle fitted with the technology has been operating around Hertfordshire since February, with the results showing this one vehicle idled unnecessarily for 26 hours a month - wasting more than 31 litres of diesel.
The CO2 emissions would take four trees a year to absorb.
EEAST has nearly 500 ambulances that drive more that 12 million miles a year.
Keiran Bromley, Fleet Clinical Engagement & Implementation Manager for EEAST said: “The system constantly monitors a range of metrics while the vehicle is in use, including battery levels and temperatures to turn the engine on or off to reduce engine use or to preserve battery charge.
“It would be triggered by situations such as waiting at a hospital with the engine left running, but will not compromise the vehicle’s essential systems - including the saloon heating/air-conditioning.”
EEAST has become the first NHS trust in the country to commit to fitting all its new vehicles with this technology.
By late summer 40 of its ambulances will have the system fitted.