London to only procure zero-emission buses
London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced that from now on all new buses ordered by Transport for London (TfL) for the British capital will zero-emission vehicles.
From now onwards, only battery and hydrogen buses will be procured and the purchase of new diesel and hybrid buses will be stopped completely. TfL’s goal of a zero-emission bus fleet in London is now to be achieved by 2034, three years earlier than previously planned.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “Today’s announcement builds on the progress we’ve already made tackling toxic air pollution. I’ve worked hard to ensure TfL’s entire bus fleet across now meets the ULEZ standards, this includes 550 zero-emission buses. We need to act now and accelerate the transition to a greener future, with cleaner air for all.”
The Mayor’s office says that TfL already has 950 zero-emission buses on the road or on order. Now that the market is more mature and expanding in the UK, TfL says it can now guarantee that it will only purchase new zero-emission buses.
In June this year, England’s first fleet of hydrogen-powered double-decker buses went into service in London. Twenty fuel cell vehicles by Northern Ireland’s Wrightbus will serve the number 7 route between East Acton and Oxford Circus. Just a week earlier, the electric bus cooperation between BYD and ADL announced that the public transport operator, RATP Dev in London, had ordered 195 new electric buses from BYD-ADL, including 127 double-deckers and 68 solo buses.
The TfL said the commitment to procure only zero-emission buses will “give British bus manufacturers confidence in large orders enabling them to significantly ramp up production” and help local authorities “to progress towards zero-emission targets that would not be possible otherwise.”
The announcement was given as the Mayor hosted the Zero-emission Bus Summit at City Hall this week just passed. The summit is organised by the Campaign for Better Transport and TfL and involved local and national government representatives, bus operators, manufacturers as well as wider stakeholders to drive forward the uptake of zero-emission buses across the UK.
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