Officials decided to invest some money in trialling alternative transport systems, and electric buses seemed a perfect option.
London's West End should have an extended weekend Underground service, a fleet of electric buses and more traffic-free days, says a new report.
BBC: London's West End needs 'better governance and transport'
Despite the electric buses project in Italy being a success on a small scale, the company has found it tricky to expand the operation.
Stagecoach already has about 180 hybrid electric buses in service in the UK, with nearly 60 more being introduced by the end of March.
The Chinese company will make electric buses and large-scale batteries in Lancaster, California, located in Los Angeles County, BYD said in a press release on Friday.
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BYD, the Chinese leader in electric vehicles, sold just 1, 700 electric cars and 700 electric buses in 2012 and says it expects to triple that this year.
The U.S. will assist Costa Rica in finding ways to use electric vehicles to cut smog, and a U.S. company will sell electric buses to the country.
The main reason has been the difficulty in convincing municipalities to get on board, said Mr Wechlin, as electric buses are usually a lot more expensive than petrol or diesel powered ones.
To that end, its city hall is covered in solar panels and there are plans to fit cosier insulation to local-government buildings, build four waste-to-energy plants and buy 500 hybrid diesel-electric buses by 2010.
Shenzhen stands out as a city that has deployed several hundred all-electric taxis, all-electric municipal buses and a charging station network.
Karen Owers, 44, from Aston, needs a ramp for her electric wheelchair but RH Buses does not always supply one.
"The buses have signs that they are electric, and people say that they like the experience - the buses are a lot smoother than diesel ones, " said Mathias Wechlin from Conductix-Wampfler, a German company that, just like HaloIPT, originally sprung from the University of Auckland and now licenses the technology.
There are no plans for pollution-charging to cover private cars (only platitudinous incentives for electric cars), which, though individually cleaner than buses and lorries, are more plentiful and produce roughly similar amounts of muck in total.
Wrightbus is working with the ISE Corporation of California to deliver the new buses in which hydrogen is used to power an electric drive system.
The double-decker buses have climate control, free wi-fi and hybrid electric-diesel engines to save fuel.
Once out in traffic, I appreciated how the electric motor assistance gave me the necessary speed to keep up with the red double-decker buses.
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