Openreach uses Google Cloud to reduce vehicle fleet’s carbon footprint

Openreach, operator the UK’s largest broadband network, is working with Google Cloud to accelerate its sustainability and connectivity goals. 

Openreach is seeking to optimise its commercial fleet, which is the UK’s second largest by number of vehicles. These vehicles are being used to roll out gigabit full fibre broadband to homes across the UK. 

Leveraging Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and BigQuery, Openreach has implemented initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint of its 24,000-van fleet, improve operational efficiency, and enable faster broadband installations for customers.

With vehicles covering almost 200 million miles each year, Openreach has migrated its fleet telematics data to Google Cloud to drive meaningful sustainability and efficiency gains. By applying advanced geoanalytics, these initiatives are already cutting emissions and unnecessary mileage, while also generating millions of pounds in annual savings for its operations nationwide. 

Using BigQuery geoanalytics capabilities, Openreach can now:

• Accelerate its transition to electric vehicles: Openreach can now identify where electric vans can replace diesel vehicles most effectively, based on real-world usage, routes, and charging availability. Openreach’s rich cloud-based fleet data has helped roll out EVs at a significantly faster rate, with those extra EVs taking c10,000 tonnes of CO2e off the road every year.
• Reduce mileage and emissions: Openreach can pinpoint the root causes of idling and excessive travel to reduce fuel consumption, particularly in clean air zones.
• Improve fleet availability and efficiency: Openreach is able to minimise “vehicle off road” (VOR) time to ensure the right vehicles are available where they’re needed most.
• Enable proactive vehicle health: Openreach can transform data into actionable insights to identify potential faults, creating a safer and more reliable fleet.

Openreach has created a digital replica (twin) of the UK’s transportation corridors using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI. This platform integrates data of 35 million homes and businesses with national road, rail and waterway networks, and its existing broadband infrastructure. This allows planners to visualise exactly where full-fibre can be extended sooner – identifying eligible homes and businesses. This enables amore sustainable expansion of Openreach’s Full Fibre network.

Openreach is using Gemini Enterprise, Google Cloud’s agent orchestration platform, to make its cloud engineering more efficient. The platform enables data engineers to automatically convert complex legacy queries into clean, production-ready code for BigQuery. By handling these repetitive tasks, Openreach has already reduced time-to-insight by upwards of 50%, allowing engineers to prioritise building new solutions over manual code maintenance. 

“As the builder of the UK’s largest broadband network and operator of the country’s second largest commercial vehicle fleet, we take our responsibilities seriously,” said James Tappenden, managing director, fibre first and shared services at Openreach. 

“By applying Google Cloud’s technologies to real operational challenges, we’re seeing practical, measurable benefits — from connecting more families to gigabit broadband faster, to cutting vehicle emissions across our workforce.”

Maureen Costello, vice president, UKI and SSA, Google Cloud said: “By harnessing the power of AI, and empowering its engineering teams with Gemini Enterprise, Openreach isn't just visualising data; it is using it to make real-world changes that benefit the British public and the environment.”