City of Joburg's vehicle fleet goes greener

18 June 2015

 

Johannesburg’s green revolution will move up a gear on Friday June 19 when Executive Mayor Councillor Parks Tau and Member of the Mayoral Committee for Group Corporate and Shared Services Councillor Mally Mokoena launch the City’s Fleet Greening Programme at the Metro Centre in Braamfontein.

 

This programme supports one of the City’s green economy flagship programmes whose aim is to reduce demand for conventional fossil fuel vehicles, which will lead to the reduction of greenhouse emissions.

 

The programme also prioritises the replacement of ageing and high-emission fleet with fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles and converting some of the fleet vehicles to use bio-fuels and compressed natural gas.

This project will be rolled out over three years. The City is partnering with its service providers to achieve this ambitious projection.

 

This project fits neatly into the City’s other green transport and economy projects. Metrobus and Rea Vaya are already running similar projects.

 

In February 2014, the mayor announced several measures the City was taking to mitigate against and adapt to climate change. Opening the C40 Cities Mayors Summit, Mayor Tau said Johannesburg was promoting the use of public and non-motorised transport and renewable energy to reduce the effects of climate change.

 

“We want to promote the use of public transport, cycling and walking and reduce reliance on private vehicles,” he said.

 

Mayor Tau said Metrobus had already taken delivery of two buses that used diesel and methane gas as part of a pilot project to convert buses into a dual-fuelling system. The City aims to replace a third of the Metrobus fleet with modern dual-fuel green buses.

 

He described Rea Vaya as a green transport flagship because it was already helping reduce gas emissions in the city.

 

“A crucial element of the Rea Vaya project is the reduction of Johannesburg’s public transport carbon footprint. This currently saves around 380 000 tons of CO2 emissions per annum. Once fully implemented, 6 million tons of CO2 will be saved by 2030,” he said at the time.