BENGALURU:Soon Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) buses will no longer be releasing thick, black smoke.BMTC’s fleet of over 7,000 buses will be transformed into zero-emission at “tail pipe” under the “soot-free urban bus fleet” project being implemented in Bengaluru and 20 mega cities in the world.
Incidentally, Bengaluru is the only Indian city to be included in the soot-free urban bus fleet campaign launched in 2015 by The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), a non-governmental international research organisation based in San Francisco.
“An MoU was signed between BMTC Managing Director V Ponnuraj and ICCT in association with the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) India office in Bengaluru a week ago,’’ ICCT Clean Air Programme Lead Ray Minjares told TNIE on the sidelines of an international conclave towards clean and low carbon mobility organised by Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi on Wednesday. Soot-free, he explained, is defined as including any engine that meets Euro VI norms and any diesel engine with a diesel particulate filter.
As in most megacities, BMTC’s bus fleet is dominated by diesel engines. Soot is not only a dangerous pollutant for public health but also a major contributor to climate change. For the next three years, ICCT will offer technical guidance to BMTC on fleet modernisation with the induction of electric buses with an objective of achieving zero emission, air pollution and help improve quality of life in city.
Besides technical guidance, ICCT also will help BMTC to attract finance for procuring technology, building depots among others. “We intend to replicate the success of Bengaluru in other cities,’’ he said, adding that the biggest bus and engine manufacturers like Swedish Scania had pledged to make soot-free engine technology available for purchase in 20 megacities beginning from 2018.
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Soot-free campaign is also being implemented by ICCT in Abidjan, Accra, Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Casablanca, Dar es Salaam, Dhaka, Istanbul, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Lagos, Lima, Manila, Mexico City, Nairobi, Santiago, Sao Paulo, and Sydney.