Edinburgh Council goes Electric

Today the Council has launched a trial of electric scooters. Environmental Leader, Councillor Robert Aldridge, is trialling one of the vehicles provided at no cost to the council by Robert Steele from Go Zippyr, the company who makes the special scooters.

State-of-the-art electric scooters will also be trialled by staff from the City of Edinburgh Council in a bid to help reduce carbon emissions and find new ways of sustainable travel.

The four month scheme, which starts in May, aims to collect information on the economic and environmental benefits of the electric scooters.

During the trial, workers will be asked to keep a log book of their experiences and comment on how they found driving the vehicles.

Staff will use the bikes to commute to and from work, go out on Council business and for personal use.

The project, which is free to the Council, also hopes to demonstrate the different ways Edinburgh can make a contribution to reducing carbon emissions and meet Scottish Government targets on climate change. The trial also fits in with the Council’s Sustainable Travel Plan (2009-12) which looks at how the Council can improve its environmental performance.

We spoke to Councillor Aldridge who seems excited about the project:-

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F11285227&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=9d00ff Councillor Robert Aldridge 1 March 2011 by PMStephenmstephen”>PMStephen