First Low Emission Bus Zone launched by London’s Mayor

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has put in place the capital’s first ever Low Emission Bus Zone in order to cut harmful nitrogen dioxide emissions.

It has been implemented in Putney High Street, one of the most polluted areas in London.

The clean bus zone, which runs 145 buses on seven scheduled routes, will now be serviced only by buses that meet the toughest emission standards.

The Mayor of London has also asked Transport for London to reduce emissions from London’s bus fleet, which includes the phasing out of diesel buses and a commitment to buying only hybrid or zero-emission double decker buses from 2018.

Buses will have to meet tough emission standards from now on in order to run within the zone and bus priority measures are set to be put in place to keep delays to a minimum and reduce pollution caused by traffic.

The launch follows a City Hall Poll which showed that nine out of 10 Londoner’s found air pollution to be at a crisis level.

In 2016, Putney High Street exceeded hourly legal levels of nitrogen dioxide on more than 1,000 occasions and under EU rules, the limit should not be breached more than 18 times in a year.

This is the first of 12 new Low Emission Bus Zones that will be introduced to air quality hotspots, which expose Londoner’s to some of the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution. These areas also operate older buses, which contribute to road transport emissions.

Khan said: “London’s toxic air is an outrage and I promise to make cleaning it up one of my top priorities.

“I have asked TfL to remove the oldest, dirtiest buses from our streets and this new route, along with 11 others we’ll be introducing, will make a big difference to the pollution caused by our public transport system.

“There is nothing more important to me than safeguarding the health of Londoner’s. I’m doing everything in my power to both transform London’s bus fleet and target areas with the worst pollution so that the streets we live and work in are better places to be.”