LBE Investigation reported here

Thursday 22nd July 2015

LBC INVESTIGATION 

LBC has learnt that faulty Routemaster buses are emitting more harmful particles than the buses they were designed to replace

It's claimed that around 80 of the hybrid fleet have faulty engines, meaning they run solely on diesel.

A test carried out by LBC has found more harmful ultrafine particles are being emitted by the faulty buses than the previous fleet.

LBC's Senior Reporter Tom Swarbrick carried out tests on a 24 Routemaster that was only running on its diesel engine, along with an older 176 bus.

Using a Nanotracer PNT1000, we measured the number of ultrafine particles per cubic metre being emitted from the exhausts. 

These particles are so small that they can penetrate the lining of your lungs and get into the bloodstream, potentially causing damage to the heart and brain. They are 700 times smaller than a human hair and pose the greatest health risk becuase they are so small that the body fails to get rid of them.

One of the faulty new Routemaster buses emitted 52,648 UFPs per cm3. The older bus had just 30,212.

For context, the room at Kings' College London where the test was carried out had a reading of 3998 UFPs per cm3. After receiving advice from experts at KCL, the readings were taken at the same bus stop at the same time of day to ensure accuracy.

Ken Davidson, TfL’s Head of Bus Operations, said: "It is simply not credible to try and test the emissions of buses in this way. This experiment is flawed. Comparing the emissions from two different buses at different times and different locations is not going to give you a realistic comparison. This is why we test and compare them by simulating across an entire route in an independent testing centre where all other factors affecting air quality can be controlled.

"Overall the New Routemaster fleet is delivering significant reductions in emissions compared to the buses they replaced.

"All vehicles are installed with highly sophisticated filtering systems to reduce particulate emissions, and since the installation of diesel particulate filters we have reduced particulate emissions from 200 tonnes a year in 1997 to less than 17 tonnes today. Our priority remains to reduce NOx emissions from the bus fleets – a measure this experiment does not even measure." 

Stephen Knight, a Liberal Democrat member of the London Assembly, said: "After the huge fortune spent on them it is appalling that so many new routemasters have faulty hybrids systems and are therefore emitting more diesel pollution than they should.

"The Mayor and TfL must now publish the full details of the actual pollution being emitted by these buses."

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TfL Having issuing denials, truth comes out: on 06th August

Routemaster bus emissions ‘not tested in diesel-only mode’

No testing of emissions from New Routemaster buses while in non-hybrid mode has ever been carried out by Transport for London (TfL), a Freedom of Information request has revealed.

Labelled by TfL as “cleanest and greenest bus of its class” the New Routemasters – dubbed the Boris Bus – awere designed to be low emission vehicles by running mostly on electricity and only using the diesel generators when the batteries run flat.

However, last week TfL’s managing director of surface transport, Leon Daniels, admitted that 80 of the new electric-diesel hybrid Routemaster buses have been running solely on diesel generators rather than electric power due to problems with the batteries (see AirQualityNews.com story).

TfL said an improved battery design had been introduced on new buses and that any older batteries have since been repaired and replaced at no cost to the taxpayer, but it has faced criticism that the buses – first brought into service by the Mayor of London in 2012 – are overly-expensive and contribute to poor air quality.

The news prompted London Assembly Member Stephen Knight to submit a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to TfL about whether any emissions testing of the Routemasters had been carried out while operating on just diesel fuel, to which TfL confirmed yesterday (August 5) in response that there had not.

TfL’s response states: “We only hold hybrid mode emissions data, as the basis of the test is to assess the vehicle in its normal operating mode.”

A spokesman for TfL added today that there was “no purpose in testing the New Routemasters in non-hybrid mode because they are hybrid buses”.

However, Mr Knight said the FOI response showed that TfL has “no understanding of the real levels of pollution created by the New Routemasters despite repeated claims that they are the ‘most-environmentally friendly bus of its kind’”.