Sindh Government is considering the launch of electric buses in Karachi to facilitate Karachiites and reduce the environmental and noise pollution. Informed sources told Business Recorder on Saturday that Government is considering bringing approximately 3000 new busses in Karachi to be deployed on different routes. Several options are under consideration for Karachi and electric busses are on the top of the list.
Officials said that diesel and gas buses have not produced desired results in Karachi hence the government is considering to introduce eco-friendly electric buses that will have zero noise and will not emit polluting smoke.
Once plied on the city roads, the launch of environment-friendly electric buses would raise Pakistan's status, globally, said an industry expert. Some of the countries which are working toward switching to the vehicles powered by a rechargeable battery include the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, China and Pakistan's arch-rival India. With Pakistan's all-weather friend China having already declared its intention last month to ban the sale of gasoline and diesel-powered cars going forward, India, the world's fifth largest automobile market, has set 2030 as a deadline for selling electrified vehicles only. The move will help New Delhi cut its oil imports bill by $60 billion and 37% carbon emissions.
The officials said that "better late than never," is the proverb one can perfectly use for the Pakistan People's Party-led Sindh government which, they said, has begun weighing various options to address the plight of commuters in this most populated commercial hub of the country. The world's leading automakers suck as Ford Motor Company, Volvo, Volkswagen, General Motors, Renault-Nissan and Tata Motors have announced their plans to make their future productions all-electric.
With zero-emission, the proposed fully-electric buses are powered by a motor instead of an internal combustion engine. The motor derives all its power from batteries that can be recharged by plugging the vehicles into an electrical grid. Public transport has remained a major problem of Karachi where, a study showed; 3.13 million registered vehicles were plying on roads by the end of 2013. Of this total, public transport buses numbered 12,399, of which only 9.527 were operative.
Conducted by urban planner Arif Hasan and Mansoor Raza in 2015, the study, "Karachi: The Transport Crisis," showed that the metropolis was then facing a shortfall and had required at least 8,676 large buses. The researchers concluded that 4.5% composition of public transport vehicles in Karachi carried 42% of the total passengers.
"Transport has to be seen as a part of a larger city planning exercise," said the study in which the two experts believed that the city's transport programs had been suffering from persistent interruptions in the city's governance system. With next general elections round the corner, the Sindh government now seems to have woken up to the city's pressing transportation needs. The energy and environmentalists tend to give a heads-up on the adoption of advanced technologies as the Murad Shahs-led Sindh government is planning to introduce different mass transport systems in this megapolis.
The electric vehicles, the experts said, are more environment-friendly than the existing green buses that are run on various compressed and liquefied natural and petroleum gases. They said since electric vehicles would have only electrical and not mechanical components at work they would help minimize air and noise pollution on the city's congested roads. Asked if an energy-deficient nation such as Pakistan can sustain electric-powered vehicles, the experts said K-Electric had enough electricity to power the proposed buses. They said that the buses would not burden the existing electricity grid.
It is relevant to add here that according to provisional results of Census 2017, Karachi's population has increased to 14.9 million since 1998 when the last headcount had put the number of Karachiites at 9.34 million. However, a study conducted in 2012 by Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) estimated the city population at 24 million.
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