Eight interesting environment-friendly transportation systems

21 Aug 2013, 11:00 AM IST

1 / 7 Eight interesting environment-friendly transportation systems Text: Agencies



In an increasingly pollution-conscious world, environment-friendly transportation systems are in a huge demand. Be it metro services, buses or personal transport vehicles such as hybrid cars, we take a look at eight interesting initiatives worth a mention...

2 / 7 PRT Pod Cars World's first urban Passenger Rapid Transport (PRT) system will in a few years be a reality in Amritsar. At present, the PRT runs only at the London Heathrow Terminal. Urban experts think that PRT will eliminate cars in future cities.



PRT pod cars are small automated vehicles moving on dedicated tracks, and they are being tried in some cities around the world, including Amritsar in India. PRT is in fact a personal taxi, which is demand-responsive to any user. It transports users anywhere within the track network directly and without any stops.



According to Ultra Global PRT, the company that makes the pod cars, the vehicle uses one third of the energy of a car is virtually silent with no emissions.



In pic: PR Pictures taken by photographer Lee Durant at Heathrow Terminal 5 for Advanced Transport Systems Limited.

3 / 7 ISRO, Tata Motors' fuel cell bus For the first time in the country, a Hydrogen-powered automobile bus has been developed by Tata Motors and ISRO after several years of research. It's a CNG-type bus. Hydrogen in bottles at high pressure is stored at the top of the bus and there would be zero pollution.



The hydrogen cells were a spin-off of the cryogenic technology that ISRO had been developing for the last few years. The fuel cell technology makes it a clean and silent bus on-road. Hydrogen is stored in compressed form, which combines with oxygen from the air to generate electricity, and gives water vapour as the only emission.



This electricity is used to charge the battery to power the motor of the bus. A number of fuel cells are combined to form a fuel cell stack, which is placed in the rear module of the bus.

4 / 7 Delhi Metro Delhi Metro is the world's first railway project to be registered by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change under the Clean Development Mechanism.



It has claimed carbon credits for the use of a regenerative braking system. Under the regenerative braking process, whenever trains on the Metro network apply brakes, three phase-traction motors installed on these trains act as generators to produce electrical energy which goes back into the Over Head Electricity (OHE) lines.



The regenerated electrical energy that is supplied back to the OHE is used by other accelerating trains in the same service line, thus saving overall energy in the system as about 30% of electricity requirement is reduced.

5 / 7 CNG-Electric Hybrid Bus For a city that has for so long been at the forefront of adopting clean fuels for its public transportation, the DTC has now taken its 'going green' tag to an entirely different level with the introduction of four new CNG-Electric Hybrid Bus, courtesy Tata Motors.



The Hybrid Tata Starbus has been built for intra-city transportation, and is powered by a parallel hybrid engine comprising of an internal combustion CNG engine and an electric motor using regenerative energy storage system.



Researchers and transport industry experts agree that CNG is practically the cheapest and least polluting fuel for commercial transportation. However, they believe that a CNG hybrid engine further brings down fuel consumption. Zigwheels.com

6 / 7 Mahindra's zero-emission e2o Nine years after the country's first electric car REVAi, Mahindra Reva launched a second-generation four-seat hatchback called the e2o that it says will bring down the running cost to 50 paise per kilometre.



The fully automatic, zero emission e2o, (pronounced 'Ee-too-oh') is powered by 48-volt lithium ion batteries that offer a claimed range of 100km per charge. Charging can be done anywhere through a standard 15-ampere plug point.



A full charge takes 5 hours, while a quick charge option is also there. Mahindra has plonked in some ingenious technologies into the e2o such as Sun2Car, Revive and regenerative braking system that further boost the car's range. The Sun2Car, for instance, allows people to charge the e2o using solar energy while it's parked. PTI