New in Birmingham 2: Buses with catenary

Been to Birmingham Airport recently?  If so you'll have seen two of these large and unmissable monoliths appear.  These are for opportunity charging new electric buses in use on the long stay car park shuttles at the airport.  Opportunity charging means that buses take on a small amount of charge each time they stop at the bus stop outside the airport terminal.

Close up of the charging equipment.

As long as the bus stops at the correct point (which has been painted on the road) the pantograph style charging equipment drops on to the bus to provide a quick burst of energy.   This is different to electric trains where a train-borne pantograph extends to contact fixed electric wires.

Volvo 9700e bus being charged.

And for completeness, from the rear.

The charging infrastructure (the Opp Charge system) includes a screen, presumably intended to be used to incorporate some kind of departure/real time information, and a mysterious red button.

As well as two opportunity charging points, the airport has also installed two plug-in charging points, which when fully charged should give buses 10-12 hours of operation without the need for further charging (however, I expect they will opportunity charge on every trip to keep them out running for longer).