Putrajaya Gets Electric Buses, Other Cities To Follow?

Putrajaya, the seat of Malaysia’s federal government, is set to introduce a public transportation service that we hope will see blossom in other metropolitan areas too: electric buses. 

The new buses will ferry passengers around the city’s government administrative centre and is pegged to see active service by September 2016, writes Bernama. 

According to Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, 10 electric buses had been shipped in from Japan for trial purposes on the current Nadi Putra bus routes, replacing the usual gas-powered buses in Putrajaya run by the company.

"Besides reducing air and noise pollution, the use of these electric buses are also in line with the aspiration to make Malaysia a 'Green City'.

"This electric bus service will undergo a three-month trial run to ascertain its competitiveness, after which we may change all buses running on gas to electric buses," he told reporters. 

Tengku Adnan added that each electric bus has the capacity to transport up to 60 passengers at a time and, remarkably, with just 10 minutes of charge time is able to travel a distance of 30km.