FIRST ELECTRIC BUS CARRYING PASSENGERS IN CAPE TOWN

The City of Cape Town is the first city in South Africa to offer electric busses for the public.

On Monday, Golden Arrow Bus Services launched the electric bus service together with the Western Cape Department of Transport.

The city's Gideon Neethling told IOL that the testing phase of the electric bus has been rigorous. Neethling said, for the first few months, they tested the buses in a range of circumstances without passengers, with the aim to get to know exactly how those vehicles performed, before incorporating them into their operations.

Golden Arrow tested the two electric busses. One bus was driven around without passengers while the other one was filled with sandbags equivalent in weight to 44 passengers. When fully charged, the electric buses have a range of 300 kilometres.

The launch of the electric bus was also met with criticism from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). Its provincial secretary, Malvern de Bruyn, questioned why the bus company was launching the electric buses, while people were being mugged on buses almost every day, reports IOL.

Image credit: Cape Town Etc