Welcome to our first Industry Insights
of 2024
Put together by our team of experts, this is your monthly summary of all the sector updates you need to know to run and manage your fleet.
If you have any topics you’d like us to cover in future editions, please get in touch using the details further down this page.
Thank you for reading,
The Zenith Consultancy Team
Manchester Clean Air Zone (CAZ) scrapped
Plans to introduce a Manchester Clean Air Zone (CAZ) have been shelved after modelling showed that it would not bring air quality within legal limits for nitrogen dioxide by 2026, and thus fail to meet the government’s compliance date.
Instead, investment in zero-emission transport and traffic management will be used to achieve compliance with air quality legal limits.
Greater Manchester Clean Air Plan
A new investment-led plan has been modelled and shows that compliance can be achieved by 2025, by implementing the following:
- £51.2m invested in zero-emission buses and upgrades to EV charging infrastructure at bus depots.
- A £22.5m Clean Taxi Fund providing grants (£3,770-£12,560) to help taxis meet a new minimum emission standard.
- £8m Electric Hackney Upgrade Fund providing grants (£7,530-£12,560) to help hackney carriage owners who meet the minimum emission standard upgrade to a Zero Emission capable vehicle.
- £5m investment in measure to manage traffic flow through Manchester and Salford.
Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC)
The Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) is a professional qualification that drivers of buses, coaches and lorries are required to hold in addition to their driving licence.
Recent years have seen a HGV driver shortage and it was suggested that changing the qualification requirements could be an incentive to recruitment and encourage former drivers to return to the profession. The government published in December the outcome of a consultation announcing the following reforms:
- Minimum training requirement will reduce from seven hours to three and a half hours.
- New specific pathway for returning drivers to re-join the sector.
- Introduction of a new periodic test to replace current 35 hours of training every five years as requirement to maintain the CPC (the details of which are yet to be ironed out and will be subject to a further consultation).