Smaller, lighter, faster? Reducing the carbon footprint of ambulances

In order to meet the requirements for safer manual handling, with equipment such as tail lifts and ramps, dual-crewed ambulances (DCAs) are typically increasing in weight. This has resulted in reduced fuel economy, higher running costs and poorer driving characteristics. Additionally, the NHS has identified the need for a more integrated clinical model (Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), 2011) providing more ‘see and treat’ services instead of transporting patients to emergency departments (EDs). These two factors suggest that both evolved and entirely new types of emergency vehicles will be needed to meet future requirements of ambulance services.

This pilot project aimed to investigate the potential of smaller, lighter, rapid response vehicles (RRVs) in order to:

The NHS accounts for 5% of all road traffic in England, with staff, patients and visitors travelling over 20 billion kilometres annually by car (GrEAN, 2011). The Climate Change Act [2008] has committed the government to low carbon transport and ambulance fleets have already considered low carbon solutions including an Eco Driving initiative, estimated to save £1.5 million per annum (GrEAN, 2011). Prior research at Loughborough University considered the role of electric vehicles and highlighted the potential of solo response vehicles to reduce carbon emissions (Hignett et al, 2012a).