All London buses to be Euro 6 compliant in three years, with emissions cut up to 95%
04 July 2017
04 July 2017
More than half of London’s entire bus fleet are to be upgraded to meet the latest Euro 6 EU emissions standard within just three years. This will be cleaning up the remaining high-emitting members of London’s bus fleet so that by September 2020, the entire bus fleet will meet at least the Euro 6 standard.
In just two years by 2019, this will also mean that all buses within the central London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) will at minimum meet the Euro 6 hybrid standard.
To achieve this, significant-cost selective catalytic reduction (SCR) equipment, as well as diesel particulate filters, will be retrofitted on 5,000 of London’s 9,200-vehicle bus fleet in the latest ambitious drive by London mayor Sadiq Khan to clean up London’s toxic air. Part of the most aggressive proposals of any major city worldwide, he has made air pollution the flagship programme of his mayoralty.
Khan said: ′We know that pollution from our roads is a major contributor to London’s toxic air. That’s why we are working so hard to introduce new clean buses on our streets and why we are continually looking for innovative ways to clean up the most polluting buses.
′There’s no doubt that by cutting the emissions of more than half of the fleet by up to 95 per cent, this innovative retrofit programme is going to make a huge difference to Londoners.’
Last month, the popular mayor set out his radical Transport Strategy, with far-reaching implications that will transform mobility in the capital from a car and public transport-dominated model to a flexible multimodal mobility society. Certain streets (probably including shopping mecca Oxford Street) will be closed to cars completely, road lanes will be reduced to make room for cycling. And even electric vehicles are not safe, with restrictions placed on the number of parking spaces allowed at new buildings, to encourage movement away from a one owner-per-vehicle mentality.
This Transport Strategy also stipulates that by 2037 at the latest, every single one of London’s 9,200 buses must be ′zero’ emission – in other words, they must all by electric or hydrogen powered by then.
To achieve the retrofit programme by 2020, the mayor’s Transport for London (TfL) will be working with bus operators and five chosen suppliers to install the new bespoke exhaust systems to reduce nitrogen oxide and particulate emissions.
Programmes introduced in London often inspire other local authorities across the UK. Such use of significant-cost SCR technology, widely used by car manufacturers in the US to meet strict American emissions limits, will make it more difficult for manufacturers to continue to resist deploying such technologies in Europe.