Fiasco as Bus Filters Cause Pollution

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Blunder could cost transport authorities £50 million

A new official report on air pollution has highlighted an expensive error by Transport for London which has caused a deterioration in air quality in London

Particulate traps were fitted to all London buses as part of a £30m project at the end of 2005. These were supposed to reduce emissions.

However, a chemical reaction caused by the filters caused 5 times the amount of the toxin, nitrogen dioxide, to be pumped out.

The Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG) recently published a report "Trends in Primary Nitrogen Dioxide in the UK" which they have put out for consultation. In it they express concern that levels of Nitrogen Dioxide have been rising against the trend for other air borne toxins.

They have concluded that the trend was particularly bad in London and coincided with the retro-fitting of diesel powered London buses with filters. These actually turned the relative harmless Nitrogen Oxide into Nitrogen Dioxide which can cause breathing difficulties for people with existing respiratory problems.

Professor Mike Pilling, who led a government-funded study into the problem, said he was concerned about NO2 because it had a significant effect on human health and London is now predicted to miss targets for reducing its output over the next few years.

TfL have reportedly described the report as misleading. They are planning to introduce new more eco-friendly buses in the future such as hybrid buses which use an electric motor or hydrogen powered buses whose only output is water vapour. Ken Livingstone is also looking at plans to introduce a 'low-emission zone' in which polluting vehicles would need a permit to enter London.

Transport for London paid £30 million to retro-fit the whole of London's bus fleet. They are now testing new filters which would screen out nitrogen dioxide. It would cost another £24,000,000 to reconvert all of the capital's 8,000 buses.

Transport for London recently announced that they were increasing the peak single fare for a bus journey to £2 and the fare for a single journey to Zone 1 on the tube will be £4. Fares for Oyster card users were not changed.

 

September 24, 2006