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and accessibility of its vehicles, which has had a monumental impact across the business.
“ Last year, trentbarton’ s sister company, Kinchbus in Loughborough, was successful as part of the government’ s ZEBRA 2 scheme, which enabled us to implement electrical infrastructure across the entire depot,” Tom reveals.“ Incidentally, we’ re investing in 22 electric buses for that depot, which will mean that the entire Loughborough town network will be run on zero-emission vehicles. We’ ve also spent a lot of time with our partners who are designing those vehicles to elevate the customer environment to the next level, using natural, sustainable materials wherever possible.
“ In addition, we’ ve worked with a number of neurodiversity and impairment groups to better understand how we can make the internal customer environment more attractive to people with different needs,” he continues.“ We’ ve focused heavily on the sensory experience on our vehicles; for instance, while our electric vehicles are a lot quieter, we’ ve added acoustic flooring and double glazed windows to eliminate as much of the road noise as possible. We’ ve installed air conditioning to keep the temperature at a comfortable, consistent level and have softened our lighting and color palette to be less abrasive on the senses. In addition, these vehicles will be the first in the UK from that manufacturer to have cantilever seats, meaning that guide dogs can fit more easily under the seats when people with them board.
“ We want to ensure that the internal customer environment is as closely mirrored to what you’ d see in a private car as possible, meaning that our vehicles are clean, comfortable, and attractive environments to be in. We want people to feel happy to make that environmentally sustainable switch to public transport.”
Complementary to this, trentbarton has also been investing in technologies to further improve and simplify its customers’
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