£86.1m London bus retrofit

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has announced a new £86.1m retrofit project on London buses. It will see around 5,000 buses upgraded to Euro 6 emissions standard. It is expected to mean that by September 2020 the entire bus fleet will be at least Euro 6 standard. TfL is to work with bus operators and five chosen suppliers to install the new bespoke exhaust systems, which will reduce nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. Diesel Particulate Filters (DPFs) will be installed together with Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) equipment to reduce air pollution. Following a competitive tender process, the five suppliers appointed to retrofit the exhaust systems are Amminex, Baumot Twintec, Eminox, HJS and Proventia.

From next year, all new double-deck buses will be hybrid, electric or hydrogen. In addition all buses within the central London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) will be Euro 6 hybrid standard by 2019. Last week, the Mayor also set out in his draft Transport Strategy that by 2037 at the latest, all 9,200 buses across London will be zero emission.

Sadiq Khan said: “We know that pollution from our roads is a major contributor to London’s toxic air. That’s why we are working so hard to introduce new clean buses on our streets and why we are continually looking for innovative ways to clean up the most polluting buses. There’s no doubt that by cutting the emissions of more than half of the fleet by up to 95%, this innovative retrofit programme is going to make a huge difference to Londoners.”

Public Transport Campaigner, Campaign for Better Transport, Lianna Etkind, said: “London is consistently breaching legal limits on air pollution, which seriously affects people’s health, so it’s good to see that TfL recognises the need for urgent action on the capital’s air pollution crisis. Buses are very much part of the solution, so the retrofitting of the London’s bus fleet up to Euro 6 standard will come at a small cost compared to the huge benefit to people’s health.”