Better buses = cleaner air.
Since London’s filthy air apparently puts us in greater danger of catching coronavirus, the push to clean up air pollution in the capital has become an increasingly vital move. These efforts took a great step forward today, as TfL has announced that all of the London buses in their fleet now meet the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) standards. With 9000 buses now conforming to clean air requirements, TfL has dubbed it “a major milestone in tackling toxic air pollution in the capital.”
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Of those 9000, 4000 older diesel buses have been retrofitted with cleaner engines in a bid to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate emissions. TfL has spent £85 million on this scheme since its inception in 2017, and reckons this will result in 95% less NOx emissions, and 80% less particulate matter from each bus. Overall, the proportion of NOx bus emissions will drop from 15% to just 4%, which should do great things for London’s air quality.
The retrofitting is part of a wider plan to transition London’s bus network to a zero-emission transport system – and help meet Sadiq Khan’s plan for city buses to be zero carbon by 2030. To this end, the fleet also boasts 400 all-electric buses, with 300 further zero-emission buses expected to join the ranks by the end of 2021. By 2025, TfL bosses hope to have 2000 all-electric buses in operation. After all that, maybe Londoners will be able to breathe a little easier…