Bhubaneswar: The Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT) along with the Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU) has planned to identify and install charging stations at different locations in the city ahead of a smooth rollout of the proposed e-buses here.
Under the Centre’s Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric (and hybrid) Vehicles scheme (Fame-II), a decision was taken in August this year to provide 50 electric buses to CRUT. While the public transport body had invited proposals for operation and maintenance of the buses, it had also set out to identify charging stations for the same in the city.
“Once the bidding parties are done with the assessments, CRUT will identify the locations for installing charging points. A central charging station will be set up for all buses while other stations will come up at different locations of the city. The entire project will be done in coordination with CESU which will ultimately set up theses stations,” a CRUT official explained.
Depending on the types of buses, an e-bus could cover up to 200-300 km on a single charge. While the evaluation process is yet to begin, city urban planners speculated that at least two stations need to be erected for efficient functioning of the network.
With about 200 buses in its fleet and 1,800 trips every day, CRUT’s move to introduce electric buses has been widely appreciated by experts, especially in the backdrop of the rapid decline in air quality here.
Demo runs to begin Thursday
Demo test runs for the proposed electric buses in the capital city are set to begin from November 21. The tests will assess the challenges and requirements before the blueprint of the plan is implemented.
Sources said, different bidding parties will give demo runs to CRUT. The transport body will then analyse performance of the agencies and will eventually get into a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) with the appropriate party. The entire process is set to be completed in a year’s time.