The Clean Air Zone (CAZ) is part of the Government’s long-term strategy to improve air quality across the country. The ramifications of this initiative will affect your business if you rely on petrol or a diesel-based fleet.
Most of all, making it prohibitively expensive to operate if you own a pre-Euro 6 (VI) diesel or pre-Euro 4 petrol. Drivers of these engines will need to pay a daily charge to enter the controlled areas as they are considered the more polluting.
Studies suggest that around 60% of the 200,000 vehicles entering Birmingham city centre, the new CAZ charge will affect them.
The rollout for CAZ began in Bath and this month in Birmingham, with the following area launches imminent in Bristol, Bradford, Portsmouth, Greater Manchester, Newcastle, Gateshead, and North Tyneside.
Similarly, London operates a more stringent Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ). This area will be extended to the South Circular, covering 18-times larger than the original Low Emission Zone, by 25 October 2021.
What with a global pandemic, Brexit and any other external forces already impacting your organisation, the reality of exploring options for upgrading non-compliant vehicles may be overwhelming right now. To help fleet managers rethink future fleet plans and solve current issues, we are launching the FLEETMAXX Emissions Calculator.
This free-to-use number-cruncher can save fleet managers hours of work by calculating the actual emission data based on the vehicle model and its fuel type in seconds. It adds up the specifics to vehicle model, registration date, fuel usage and current mileage, and reports on Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Nitrogen Oxide (NOx), and particulate matter emissions in line with the latest Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme (FORS) Standard relating to Performance Data.
FLEETMAXX SOLUTIONS is a FORS Associate and our FORS practitioner, Rachel Pearson, offers support to organisations taking up the FORS scheme. Commenting on the online counting tool, she says, “FLEETMAXX Emissions Calculator makes monitoring emissions an easy task for any fleet size from a couple of vans upwards to a couple of thousand. All emissions are calculated to the equivalent kilograms of CO2 based on annual DEFRA rates using latest FORS Standard conversion rates.”
