With an aim to reduce air and noise pollution, Mumbai people will soon get battery-operated eco-friendly BEST buses. Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) has got its first batch of four battery operated buses this week.
The battery-operated, eco-friendly BEST buses will be seen at at the roads of Mumbai by the end of this month after these gets registered at the regional transport office in Tardeo. BEST has bought these nose and pollution free buses at the cost of 10 Crore. Firstly these will be operated in island city.
Features of battery-operated, eco-friendly BEST buses
The buses will be run using lithium ion batteries. The batteries take three hours to get fully charged. The electric bus can go for 300 Kms after being charged to full limit.
Special charging facilities have been created at Backbay depot to charge the buses. The low floor designs of these buses make them passenger friendly. These will also be easy to drive as there are no clutches and gear boxes in these eco-friendly buses. The buses will have 35 seats.
In March 2016, the BEST panel had given its approval for purchasing of these buses. The cost of each bus is around Rs1.65 crore, which is more than triple of the cost of fossil fuel non-AC and AC buses at Rs50 lakh.
