23 Jun New hydrogen buses added to TfL fleet
The Mayor of London has launched England’s first ever hydrogen double decker buses, marking another step towards making London’s bus fleet zero-emission and cleaning up the capital’s toxic air.
The 20 new environmentally-friendly buses, the first of their kind to be launched in England, will produce no pollution from their exhausts and join more than 500 electric buses in the core fleet which are already zero-emission. The new hydrogen fuel cell double decker buses are first being introduced on route 7 between East Acton and Oxford Circus.
Hydrogen used in a fuel cell is free from harmful emissions. The only by-product is water from the chemical reaction of hydrogen with oxygen from air, a process that produces electricity to power the bus.
The buses will help clean up the air and improve the health of Londoners by reducing the level of harmful nitrogen oxide in the air. Passengers will benefit from smoother, quieter journeys due to fewer vibrations and will be able to take advantage of free-to-use USB charging points.
In addition to around £6 million of funding from TfL, more than £5 million of funding for the new buses has been provided by European bodies – by the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking, and the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), an executive agency of the European Commission – as well as £1 million from the Office of Zero Emission Vehicles.
As part of TfL’s wider work to make buses greener, by January 2021, all buses in its core fleet had been brought up to strict Euro VI emissions standards following a retrofitting programme. Since 2017, TfL has worked to phase out polluting diesel buses and to retrofit older buses with cleaner engines. Now completed, this will see harmful NOx emissions from buses fall by an average of 90 per cent. Transport for London has a total fleet size of around 9,000.
A commitment to improving air quality aligns with the BID’s own focus on green investment. Our projects in this area include Parcels not Pollution, which aims to reduce last-mile polluting vehicles in the town centre, our BLEN, parklets and the developing Public Realm Vision, all of which contribute to reducing air pollution.
More information about the BID’s activities can be found here.