The Environmental Benefits of Coach Travel

Many people choose to hire coaches and minibuses because of their convenience and safety. The environmental upsides of this type of travel are discussed less often – but they’re just as important.

Actually, if you’re looking to travel with a group in an eco-friendly way, renting a coach is a great choice. Read on to see why.

Less fuel used per seat

One huge benefit of traveling by coach or minibus is that larger vehicles use less energy to move each person. That’s partly because cars weigh more per seat than coaches do.

Let’s look at some rough, average numbers.

Your average five-seat car on the larger side might weigh about 1,800 kg when unoccupied. In contrast, a typical fifty-seat coach might weigh 13,000 kg when it’s empty. You’d need 10 cars at a total of 18,000 kg to move the same fifty people.

In short, there’s a saving of 5,000 kg in vehicle weight when a full fifty-seat coach is on the road. And every kilogramme saved in vehicle weight means a savings in energy expenditure.

This all adds up to less fuel needed to move the same number of people.

How to maximise fuel savings

Now, the above calculations were based on fitting five people in a car, which isn’t actually that common. For groups of taller or larger people, it might not even be possible. When you organise group events, it’s so common for people to drive on their own or arrive in twos or threes.

If fewer people are travelling in each car, the vehicle weight per person is even higher. So, the energy savings from moving a group of fifty by a coach rather than individual cars might be markedly more than we estimated, depending how many people are in each car.

Of course, there could also be energy wasted if a coach runs with a lot of empty seats. But that’s the great thing about coaches – you can hire them in a variety of different sizes to fit your needs, allowing you to minimise empty seats.

For example, at Star Coaches our vehicles range in capacity from a 16-20 seater minibus to a 70-72 seater coach. When you get to pick exactly the right size vehicle for you, you’re being even more eco-friendly.

Decreased carbon emissions

Lower fuel use means all sorts of good things. One of them is less carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.

Since carbon emissions play a core role in climate change, it’s environmentally friendly to reduce them wherever possible.

How much less carbon is produced by a coach than an ordinary car?

A UK government report from 2023 calculated that a trip from London to Glasgow in a petrol car would produce four times more carbon dioxide per passenger than the same trip in a coach.

And a BBC article estimated that a car containing 4 passengers made 43 grammes of emissions per passenger per kilometre, whereas a coach made only 27. For a person travelling individually in a car, the figure rocketed up to 171 grammes!

Lowered air pollution

There’s another perk that comes with less fuel usage, too, and that’s less air pollution.

As well as making carbon dioxide, combustion engines also make pollutants like carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide. Once again, decreased fuel usage means less pollutants.

It’s worth mentioning that vehicle engines are not the only source of their pollutants. Wear on tyres and brakes also creates tiny particulates in the air. But using fewer vehicles cuts down on this issue, too.

Less road space occupied

While fuel is a major factor, it’s not the only point to consider in assessing the eco-friendliness of coaches.

Another important aspect is road space and parking space.

Let’s think of that group of fifty people again. If they take their journey by car, they’re going to occupy a lot more square footage of the road than a single fifty-person coach would.

So, right away we can see that travelling by coach helps combat the formation of road congestion. That’s a good thing because when roads are congested, cars are burning fuel just to sit idle or creep along. In short, they’re wasting fuel and producing extra pollutants.

Moreover, if more people used coaches instead of cars, we could limit the width of our roads and leave more land free to be green space.

That would be better because dark-coloured tarmac absorbs heat, adding to global heating and climate change. In contrast, green spaces provide habitat for animals and insects, increasing biodiversity. They also provide a cooling effect and store carbon in the form of plants.

Other eco-friendly measures

So far, we’ve discussed very general statistics for cars versus coaches and minibuses.

But the details of the individual coach matter too. At Star Coaches, almost all of our vehicles boast Euro 6 engines. This is the strictest and most recent level of UK emissions standards, based on standards set out by the EU in 2015.

We’ve already touched upon the point that engines are not the only part of the vehicle that matters when it comes to the environment. But actually, calculating the eco-friendliness of a car, minibus or coach involves considering its whole lifecycle, from manufacturing to daily maintenance.

So, we’ve taken steps to ensure the Star Coaches depot is energy efficient, too.

Work with Star Coaches to plan your environmentally friendly trip

It’s not always easy to do what’s best for the environment as well as what’s convenient and good value for money. In fact, many items built for convenience, like disposable plastic, have negative effects on the environment. And many eco-friendly options are considerably more expensive than their alternatives.

Fortunately, that’s not the case when it comes to coach travel. When you hire an experienced private coach service like Star Coaches to take your group on a journey, you’ll get an experience that’s easy, eco-friendly and great value.

We’ll take you smoothly from door to door, taking care of all the details so that you can relax, work or chat on your trip. And we’ll work with you to choose exactly the right size coach from our fleet so that you can minimise fuel usage and reduce the environmental impacts of your travel.

If you’ve got more questions, we’re here to help! Just email info@star-coaches.com or call 01924 477111 to learn more. Alternatively, if you’re ready to start planning your environmentally friendly coach trip, go ahead and request a quote today.