While some German cities driving bans for Euro-5-plan of Diesel, buys Colombia from Germany almost 700 buses for public transport in the capital, Bogotá. A Billion-Dollar Business.
The metro bus system of the Colombian capital of Bogotá is considered a model for many cities in developing countries. After that was planned to be about 30 years unsuccessfully for the U-Bahn, was introduced in the year 2001, the bus system called “TransMilenio”. The thought-out System carried approximately 2.5 million passengers per day – in a city with more than eight million inhabitants.
According to the most recent invitation to tender for the modernization of the large articulated buses 672 Volvo were ordered diesel buses with the Euro 5 standard and with exhaust gas filter. These vehicles are intended to replace the Euro-2 and Euro – 3 buses, since the introduction of TransMilenio in operation.
This happens just at the time the court sets diesel driving bans for vehicles with Euro norms 4 and 5 in several German cities.
In Bogotá, a spacious double-articulated buses are used
“We believe that the sale of diesel buses that meet the Euro standard 6, is due to the extreme nitrogen oxide emissions is very problematic,” says Jürgen Resch, managing Director of German environmental aid compared to the DW. “We are calling on the Bush the Creator, only clean buses.”
Disturbing measurements in Colombia
In Bogotá measurements of the pollutant load of the air in the years 2015 and 2017 to outcomes that trigger Concerns for some experts stated that: “We have alarmingly high values, in particular, to micro-particles, soot and carbon monoxide. These high values were found both in the buses and at the stops,” said Ricardo Morales, a Professor at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, and Co-author of a study on pollutant loads in the transport system.
“Is a traffic participant can Morales during a 70-minute drive, a dose of particles inhaled, which is higher than if it is exposed to 24 hours of maximum quantities of the world health organization”, says. The WHO Directive for micro-particles is 25 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/sq. m.) of air over a period of 24 hours.
Eco-friendly buses or not?
María Consuelo Araujo, CEO of TransMilenio insists, “that the new buses will reduce the fine dust emissions in the capital by 87 percent. In other words, Bogotá is thanks to the new buses, better air.”
At the request of the DW, the Swedish manufacturer Volvo explains that the Euro 5 buses, which are exported to Colombia, are equipped with a particle filter that reduces emissions by 75 percent compared to conventional Euro-5 buses. The purchase of the vehicles was with a circumference of 2.3 billion dollars, the largest order that got Volvo in the last ten years, from Latin America.
Bogota: Eight million people live in the capital city without a Metro or S-Bahn.
The Colombian Senator Rodrigo Lara is a sharp critic of the deal: “Volvo has found a buyer for vehicles that no one wants to have more seriously interested in the health of the people. We have been turning outdated technology as new.”
María Fernanda Rojas of the party Green Alliance, a councillor in Bogotá, thoughtfully: “The change from Euro 2 and 3 buses with Euro 5 represents a relative improvement. It’s like switching from a Black-and-White TV to a color TV of the 90s. Of course, Volvo is happy. You have received an order that corresponds to the exchange of the half of the buses in Berlin.”
Actually, it has adopted Volvo some time ago from the Diesel. “We won’t develop a new Generation of diesel engines”, said the Chairman of the Board Hakan Samuelson, 2017, in an Interview with the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.
While a number of world cities such as Athens, Madrid, Mexico city and Paris to ban diesel vehicles by 2025, completely, to Bogotá 672 Euro 5 buses, which should be at least ten years.