February 02, 2011 The Standard
Kowloon Motor Bus is doing its bit to ensure there is less pollution on the roads.
The bus company said it has reduced the average particulate emission levels of its fleet by 90 percent over the past eight years, and the figure will be further reduced this year with the arrival of 300 Euro V buses.
Euro V vehicles emit 43 percent less nitrogen oxide when compared to the Euro IV engines, it said. As of last December, there were 89 Euro V buses in Hong Kong.
KMB principal engineer Kane Shum Yuet-hung said the 300 Euro V buses will be put on the streets as soon as they arrive.
“We are happy to announce that KMB has successfully reduced the average particulate emission levels of our fleet by 90.4 percent last year as compared with emission levels in 1992, when the European Union’s exhaust emission standards had not yet been introduced to Hong Kong,” Shum said.
He also told of a one-year pilot program in which three buses- one Euro II and two Euro III – will be retrofitted with catalytic reduction devices to meet Euro IV nitrogen oxide emission standards.
“The pilot program will be launched in the second half of this year, while pilot low- emission zones will be designated in Causeway Bay, Central and Mong Kok.”
The pilot program was announced by Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen in his last policy address.
The government will fully fund the retrofitting of the devices while bus companies will bear the subsequent operating and maintenance costs.
Regarding Tsang’s plan to replace diesel buses with six hybrid buses for use by the franchised bus companies along busy corridors, Shum said KMB will test three of the air-conditioned buses for two years in busy districts starting from the second half of 2012.
The Environment Bureau last week proposed spending HK$33 million on the two-year pilot program.
Looking ahead, a pilot program involving Euro VI buseswill be conducted in 2014 with the target of putting them into service in 2015, Shum said
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