The Ministry of Environmental Affairs is going to assist companies operating public buses to buy electric buses towards reducing air pollution from buses in Jerusalem. The project has a 4-million-shekel price tag.
In many city centers, high concentrations of air pollution originating from public transportation are measured, including nitrogen oxides and particles emitted mainly from diesel engines, which have a proven negative health effect.
Public transportation in Israel is based almost entirely on diesel-powered vehicles, and therefore contributes to air pollution in the population centers. In the coming weeks, the Ministry of Environmental Protection will launch a 260 million shekel national plan to reduce air pollution from transportation, which will include the installation of filters and the removal of old and polluting diesel vehicles.
As part of the various plans led by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and following the government’s decision to reduce air pollution from transportation in Jerusalem (Decision 2683 of May 28, 2017), the Ministry will participate in the purchase of 10 electric buses in the capital. This support will help to reduce barriers to the penetration of electric technology into the Israeli fleet of buses. These buses are powered by electricity only, without internal combustion engines, and do not produce air pollution at all when traveling.
These buses will be added to about 60 electric buses that have already been subsidized by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, with the assistance of the Jewish National Fund (JNF), with a budget of 22 million NIS.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
One Response
This article is completely inaccurate. The majority of the public buses in Israel already run on natural gas whose emissions are clean and whose production is much more environmentally friendly than batteries and chargers.