Natural Gas Road Buses: New Brightness of Passenger Transport Industry
2011-02-14 Source：www.chinabuses.org
www.chinabuses.org:On 14 January 2011, the first passenger transport route where all natural gas buses (6 units) are applied formally started by Shandong Transport Group in Shandong province. Since 2008, such models have been increasingly paid attention to and run in the provinces such as Shandong, Fujian and Henan.
Premise: Rich Natural Gas Resources
Just in the end of 2007, the number of the natural gas city buses in Beijing has exceeded 4000 units; however, the promotion of such models is sustained due to the limitations of gas stations and constant driving range.
Wan Tao from Merchandising Division of Sales Management Dept. of King Long Bus showed that “King Long natural gas buses have been purchased in batches for many times and mainly cover in Sichuan, Chongqing, Xinjiang, Guangdong, Fujian and Hainan. The sales of natural gas buses account for about 10% of that of the total city buses, 1% of that of the road buses. The promotion of the natural gas buses mainly is sustained by the gas resources.”
One bus industry expert also expressed that it is comparatively easy to promote natural gas buses in the cities due to short driving range and steady roads. However, the road transport has high demand on the constant driving range, power and the supporting facilities such as gas stations.
Possible Promotion by the Government
The inadequate gas stations and supporting facilities have attracted the attention from the related government departments. Recently, the seminar for the promotion of natural gas vehicles by the Ministry of Transport has been held in Jinan, Shandong province. Gao Hongfeng, the vice minister emphasized that it was one important measure to promote natural gas vehicles to implement the national energy policies and he pointed out that the pilot programs would be carried on based on full research and demonstration and the application range of the vehicles enlarged gradually.
Compared with the electric vehicles, our natural gas vehicles have owned some industrial foundation and the production capabilities as well as scale for both buses and trucks. The enthusiasm for production for corporations is not so high because the policy support is still not enough yet. It is understood that China Road Transport Association is laying down the scheme for promotion and implementation and carrying on region demonstration.
More Outstanding Economic Effect
The demand on natural gas buses continuously increases, affecting by the construction of gas stations. In 2010, the sales volume of Zhongtong 7-9 meter natural gas buses has reached about 300 units, mainly in Xinjiang, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan and Chongqing. Concerning the power of such buses with high speed, Cao Ruihua, the engineer in charge of natural gas buses showed that the power of the natural gas buses is similar to that of the diesel buses through the adjustment of speed ratio. He said “The price is the biggest difference between natural gas buses and diesel buses. The former is 30,000-40,000 Yuan RMB more than the latter. But the operation cost of the natural gas buses is lower than that of the diesel buses.”
Good Prospect of LNG Buses
The natural gas for vehicles can be divided as CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) and LNG （Liquefied Natural Gas）. Cao Ruihua mentioned that “There are three advantages for LNG buses: small size of the gas cylinder; long constant driving range (600km with the LNG gas cylinder occupying less than half of the luggage cabin; high safety (low pressure for storage; -170℃).”It is learnt that we have 18 projects of imported liquefied natural gas stations in Guangdong, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangxi, Hainan, Beijing, Hebei, Tianjin, Shandong and Shanghai. Our rich gas resources offer the adequate fuel guarantee for the development of natural gas road buses.
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