GREATER Anglia has removed pay and display machines as part of a new project.

The rail company has signed up to the Meters for Trees carbon reduction initiative.

As part of this, they will be removing pay and display machines from its rail station car parks and swapping them for trees.

The initiative was launched in 2019 and is run by PayByPhone.

It sees participants reduce the number of parking machines in favour of PayByPhone’s cashless parking payment technology.

The move has seen Greater Anglia remove 71 pay and display machines at 52 of its NCP-run car parks across the east of England and plant eight trees in the Amazon rainforest.

In the first 12 months alone, 50,000 miles will be saved by not having to maintain machines or to collect cash from them, and PayByPhone will offset nine tonnes of CO2 on Greater Anglia’s behalf.

Greater Anglia’s asset management director Simone Bailey said: “Rail is already the greenest way to travel but we are always looking to become even more sustainable, in line with the industry’s aim to become carbon neutral by 2050.

“Joining PayByPhone’s Meters for Trees, we are taking another step forward in making our customers’ journeys as simple, clean and green as possible.”