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Are the much loved black cabs making a dent in London’s environment?

Black Cabs

If you are a resident of London or if you have ever visited this city, you must have come across one of the illustrious symbols of London, the black cabs. And it’s also likely that you would have even hired it for finding your way in the city. But did you know that these iconic black cabs produce about 4,000 tons of CO2 every week, if all the 22,000 registered black cabs are taken into account? And to boggle your minds further if you consider the private-hire vehicles running in London then the figure could well be more than triple.

EcoVelocity, the low-carbon motor show, found these distressing facts during a recently conducted study where they considered all types of black cabs currently on the streets of London. For calculating the amount of CO2 emitted, they took the average distance that these black cabs covered each day. From their study, they found out that 80% of the city’s pollution is contributed by road transport of which black cabs alone contribute 20%. Getting rid of black cabs entirely is possibly not a great solution as these cabs have been closely related with London’s daily transport system. Therefore, what EcoVelocity suggests is that all these black cabs should be made electric vehicles, saving the city from 20% air pollution.

LTI, the company where these black cabs are manufactured, had already announced an electronic version of TX4 model in the year 2008 but, such a car hasn’t hit the road yet. Something similar was also promised by the specialist distributor, Eco City Vehicles in 2010. If that’s true then you would soon see a pure electric version of Mercedes-Benz Vito as a private hire vehicle on the roads of London.

The automobile companies are not the only ones taking steps to curb the increasing pollution. Mayor of London, Boris Johnson has also taken a “clean air initiative”, which imposes a limit of 10 years on the present black cabs while the private-hire vehicles can be 15-year-old. Further steps have been taken such as from April 1, 2012, private-hire vehicles that were licensed recently cannot be more than five years old and they should also be compliant with the EU4 emissions standards. The government is even more strict on the iconic black cabs as it requires these cabs to be compliant with the EU5 standards, which is even difficult to meet with. And currently, the only black cab that is compliant with at least EU4 standards is the latest model, TX4.

With such stern measures, if LTI is not quick enough to produce an electronic version of black cabs, the illustrious symbol of London roads would soon be extinct. Whether the black cabs stay or not is a totally different issue, the most important thing at hand is making the public transport in London more green and reduce the tons of carbon emissions.

Via: Carscoop

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