City of York ‘first in UK’ to trial new vehicle fuel additive

Pilot scheme will see DiesoLiFT fuel additive used in council fleet with aim of cutting vehicle emissions and saving £50,000 a year

City of York council will be the ‘first in the UK’ to trial a new fuel additive across its vehicle fleet, which it hopes will reduce diesel emissions and result in savings of up to £50,000 a year.

(l-r) City of York councillor Andrew Waller and Unipart Rail’s Michael Starr

Announcing the ‘ground-breaking scheme’ yesterday (September 10), the council said it has joined forces with engineering and logistics firm Unipart Rail to trial a “unique new fuel additive”, which it expects to produce savings of up to 6% of the diesel usage across its services, as well as vehicle maintenance costs.

The fuel additive will be trialled across a range of vehicle types across the council fleet, which on average currently uses around 800,000 litres of diesel each year.

The pilot scheme comes at “no incremental cost” to the council, and Unipart Rail anticipates that it will be rolled out across the country with other commercial vehicle operators.

Unipart Rail claims that its ‘DiesoLiFT’ fuel additive works by increasing the efficiency of the diesel’s combustion, safely cleans the engine and mitigates the issues borne from water contamination in the fuel.

A council operative uses the new fuel additive

According to the council, this combination of fuel improvements reduces the amount of fuel used and the level of vehicle emissions as well as helping to reduce the incidents of fuel blockages and vehicle failures.

Emissions reduction

The council said that if the trial proves successful, it will help it to “further reduce the amount of harmful emissions being emitted from its fleet”.

City of York councillor Andrew Waller, executive member for the environment, said: “We thank Unipart Rail for choosing York to trial this new product which we hope will not only save the council thousands of pounds, but will also help to reduce the amount of harmful emissions from our vehicles.

“It’s important that we can be seen to be leading the way and making this important step-change, particularly if other businesses are to follow suit.”

George Tillier, managing director of Unipart Rail, commented: “We are very pleased to be working with such a forward thinking local authority such as City of York council to trial one of our innovative products. DiesoLiFT and our fuel efficiency management package of services will help the council to save money and reduce the amount of harmful emissions that their vehicles emit. Testing and trial results within other transport sectors that we are also working with have provided compelling evidence which we are confident City of York council will also experience.”

• Elizabeth Bates, principal environmental protection office at the City of York council, will be speaking about the delivery of York’s third Air Quality Action Plan at the National Air Quality Conference in Birmingham on October 1. Click here for more information.