Bengaluru Now Second in India to Use Volvo Hybrid City Buses
Published On Jun 23, 2016
Designated as India’s Silicon Valley, Bengaluru is home to millions of techies who use thousands of vehicles everyday for city transportation. This huge volume of passenger commercial vehicles has endangered city’s environment extensively. To counter this issue, Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has launched a fleet of hybrid Volvo buses for daily city commuters. The first bus was flagged off by Dr. E V Ramana Reddy, Transport Secretary and Ekroop Kaur, MD, BMTC on recently amidst the World Environment Day celebration.
Approved by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) under the Indian government’s Faster Adoption & Manufacturing of Electric and Hybrid Vehicle (FAME) program, these Volvo 8400 hybrid city buses are liable to get subsidy of INR 61 lakh. Backed by both, a lithium ion battery and a small diesel engine, operations like steering, door opening and closing, and other hydraulic work will be done using the battery, although at low speeds on only. It’s expected that 30 percent fuel would be saved by these buses.
Volvo has 2,500 hybrid buses in operation across the globe and in India, apart from Bengaluru, these buses can also be seen on Mumbai roads. In a different order, Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport Corporation has also asked for five such buses from Volvo.
