Ramping up its efforts to curb the deteriorating air quality in the national capital, the Transport Department, Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD), has now issued a tender for electric buses. The bid submission deadline is April 26, 2019. A pre-bid meeting will be held on March 22, 2019.

The transport department has tendered a total of 385 electric buses under two clusters E1 and E2. According to the request for selection (RfS), cluster E1 has a requirement of 275 buses and cluster E2 has a requirement of 110 buses.

A single bidder can bid for both the clusters by submitting separate price bids for each of the clusters in the proposal. A bidder must enter a memorandum of understanding with a technology partner to be eligible for bidding. The successful bidder for each project will then be required to enter into a “Concession Agreement” with Transport Department GNCTD.

According to Transport Department GNCTD, “The bus design must be suitable for daily operation of 16 to 20 hours in city service with peak loading of over 100 passengers, an average traveling speed of about 15 Kms per hour with starts/stops after every 200 to 300 meters. To take care of the peak overload of about 20 percent, the bus should have buffer motor capacity in terms of kW to pull this load comfortably over a gradient of 17 percent, for which the tire rating should be such that it meets the requirement of peak hour loading.”

The transport department has specified that the typical operating conditions could be temperatures of approximately 0 degree centigrade to 50-degree centigrade, humidity level from 5 percent to 100 percent, and altitude up to 300 meters.

The bus should be designed concerning its body and different aggregates to operate in city service for 12 years or 1,000,000 km (whichever is earlier).

This tender is a result of the grant of approval from Delhi Cabinet for the procurement of 1,000 low-floor electric buses. Overall 1,000 low-floor electric buses will be procured for Delhi.

In 2018, the Delhi government had announced that 1,000 electric buses would soon be introduced in the national capital. The government also announced a comprehensive electric vehicle policy for Delhi with an emphasis on the replacement of BS-II and BS-III two-wheelers, taxi fleets, and commercial goods carriers with fully electric vehicles.

Then towards the end of 2018, the Delhi government released its draft Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy 2018 to improve Delhi’s air quality by bringing down the emissions from the transport sector.

With this policy, the government hopes that 25 percent of all new vehicle registrations by 2023 will be Battery Electric Vehicles. The policy also supports the creation of jobs in driving, selling, financing, servicing and charging of EVs.

Image credit: Volvo