All-electric double-decker bus goes to London Town

A new kind of double-decker bus has stopped in London – an all-electric, zero-emissions model has been added to Transport for London’s (TfL) fleet, The Evening Standard reports. Another five electric double-decker buses will be arriving come April as part of a pilot project, the first of which will start plying route 98 between Willesden and Holborn.

Believed to be the “first-fully electric double-decker bus in the world,” it costs over £350,000 (RM2 million). The model features windows that can be drawn open; however, it lacks the hop-on, hop-off features. The bus runs close to silent, and engineers claim that it has a travel range of 289 km on a single charge.

A couple of reasons have led to the introduction of the all-electric bus. The New Routemaster buses came with a slew of complaints ever since their launch – the grouses mainly noted that they were too hot during summer as the windows did not open.

Another reason, it seems, is due to air pollution that’s currently plaguing the city. “This is as a result of a challenge from the mayor [Boris Johnson] to tackle emissions,” explained TfL’s managing director of surface transport Leon Daniels.

“The principle driver behind this is air quality. We know London’s air quality is not as good as it should be,” the director acknowledged, adding, “buses represent a material amount of the vehicles on the roads. Cutting their emissions will make a material difference to London’s air quality.”

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