The Delhi government today started a trial run of a fully electric bus to promote pollution free public transport in the capital.

The move comes at a time when the Delhi government claims to have started several action plans as the National Capital Region reels under critical air pollution.

The transport department has already started construction of 2 electric bus depots to address the charging issue adviser to the Delhi government Gopal Mohan told India Today.

The government has said that the trial run is part of a detailed technical feasibility assessment study on electric buses.

A trial run of a low floor AC fully electric bus was flagged-off by Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot.

The bus, manufactured by a Chinese company, has a capacity of 33 seats and safety features such as four CCTV cameras with a panic button and a DC fast charging facility capable of fully charging the bus within 30 minutes.

"The trail run is part of the detailed technical feasibility assessment study on electric buses being carried out by the Project Consultant appointed by the Delhi government in July this year, the Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS) Ltd," Gahlot said.



Several global manufacturers of electric buses have been consulted and models of operations of electric buses in major cities from around the world were also studied, the government said. It had also sent a delegation from the transport department to Beijing and Shenzhen in China to study how cities have successfully deployed electric buses on a large scale.

"We expect a few other manufacturers to provide their latest electric bus models trial run as well in the coming days," said Gahlot.

The PMI-Foton electric AC bus is fitted with a DC fast charging 124 KWH battery. Its energy consumption amounts to around 1.2 KWH per km, which comes to about Rs 7.0 per km. The bus can travel over 220 kms everyday on a single charge. It is ITS enabled and has 4 CCTV cameras and a panic button.

The transport department has already started constructing electric bus depots in Delhi. The construction is expected to be completed on or before June 2019 and the first batch of electric buses are expected to be deployed for operations by July 2019.

The Delhi government will add 1,000 electric buses to the public transport fleet under a public-private partnership model. The government said the cost of running electric busses will be less than CNG based low floor AC buses.

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