London's already iconic double-decker busses could soon be entirely electric.
Mayor of London Boris Johnson announced on Monday that the first zero emissions double decker would be rolled out in an initially limited trial in October.
The bus will be a new double decker, and the extent to which it looks like the relaunched Routemaster buses, which have been slowly expanding across the city's routes (though not always with two members of staff and open rear doors, as initially expected) since 2013, is unclear. The new double decker will run on route 16, and be manufactured by BYD.
The first purely electric bus route -- the 312 between Norwood and Croydon -- will be created later in 2015, thanks to a total fleet of ten electric single-deckers in use since 2012.
The mayor told the Clean Bus Summit at City Hall that all new busses joining the central London fleet were compliant with tighter regulations on emissions within Ultra Low Emission Zones.
The Mayor said: "The iconic red double-decker bus is about to become greener than ever. I could not be more pleased that London will play host to these exciting pure electric double-deck buses, and I'm sure the lucky users of route 16 will embrace it with gusto. London is a world leader in clean buses but we can't do it alone, and events like this Clean Bus Summit are key to making further progress."
City Hall is keen to tout its figures on rolling out new lower-emission busses, citing 1,300 hybrid buses hitting the streets since 2008, with another 1,400 retrofitted to reduce emissions by 88 percent. Around 800 new Routemasters will be on the streets by 2014, and can reduce CO2 emissions by 27,500 tonnes a year, according to the Mayor's office. The aim is for all 300 single-decker busses to be zero emission models by 2020, with all 3,300 double deckers at least meeting the Euro VI electric hybrid standard.
Transport For London will also pilot inductive charging for busses, so that they can recharge their batteries while waiting at bus stands. The trial will start on diesel-hybrid busses on route 69 in East London between Canning Town and Walthamstow.
The announcements were made alongside that of a wider plan in which 24 cities will commit to rolling out 40,000 ultra-low emissions buses by 2020.
However critics of the Mayor's transport plans point out that not only were the new Routemasters expensive to design and manufacture, that London remains critically far from meeting crucial air quality standards -- with local joggers warned to avoid parts of the city during high emissions periods.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
