Scania Expands Stockholm's Enthanol Bus Fleet

One of the important areas where the automotive & transportation industry must make eco efforts is the public transport sector, with the vehicles included covering an important mileage daily. One of the solutions to the pollution problem is using engines that run on ethanol, as this can reduce fossil carbon dioxide emissions by up to 90 percent.

The latest initiative related to this comes from Scania, which announced that it is delivering 85 ethanol-powered busses to Nobina, which operates on behalf of the Stockholm regional public transport company, Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL).

The clean busses will be used for city, suburban and regional transport and will be stationed at SL’s depots in Bromma, Tyres and Sdert outside central Stockholm. The deliveries are scheduled to begin in August. The vehicles use Scania’s third generation five cylinder 270 hp ethanol diesel engines, which meet Euro 5 and EEV emission standards.

“Scania has more than 20 years of experience with ethanol buses. The company has delivered a total of about 700 ethanol buses, more than 600 of them to Swedish cities. In recent years, Scania has also delivered ethanol buses for commercial service in Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Norway and elsewhere. Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, has the world's largest fleet of ethanol buses, and as recently as during the past year, Scania delivered 85 ethanol-powered articulated buses for operation in SL's service area,” stated the press release.

The Stockholm County Council, which owns SL, has expressed its intentions to bring the level of renewable fuel passenger transport vehicles operating in its territory to 50 percent by 2012. At the end of last year, the figure had nearly reached 30 percent.