Hydrogen bus makes maiden voyage in HK

Hong Kong’s first double-decker hydrogen bus made its debut on Sunday, on Citybus’s route 20 between Kai Tak and Cheung Sha Wan. The first bus left Kai Tak’s Muk An Street at 11am, carrying some 100 passengers. Among those on board was 15-year-old Ian, a dedicated bus enthusiast, who arrived at the bus station at 6:30am. He said he even wrote a song to express his excitement. “The first sentence of the lyrics means I am very excited and happy to be travelling on this hydrogen-powered bus. And the second sentence means I didn’t sleep… I couldn’t sleep,” he said. The bus arrived at its Cheung Sha Wan destination 40 minutes after its departure – similar to the time a regular bus takes to complete the journey. Another bus fan, Rheneas, described it as a five-star travelling experience. “[It is] much quieter than normal buses, the engine is different. It uses hydrogen instead of fuel. The air conditioning is quiet enough. And the speed is also quite fast,” the 26-years-old said. Citybus presented a certificate and a water bottle made of recycled plastic to every passenger on the maiden trip – to drive home the message that the only emission from the bus was water vapour. Roger Ma, Citybus’s general manager of operations, said the company plans to purchase five more hydrogen buses by the end of this year. He added that some of the hydrogen buses may take up routes on Hong Kong Island in the future - once a fuel station there is up and running. “The next hydrogen refill station will probably be completed by the end of this year so [by then] we hope to deploy hydrogen buses to serve Hong Kong Island,” he said. “Why we currently only deploy hydrogen buses to routes serving Kowloon side, it’s because our existing hydrogen refill station is only located on the Kowloon side and one of the main limitations is that according to regulation, the hydrogen buses cannot go through tunnels,” he said. Ma noted that going forward, Citybus will also acquire five electric buses to compare their performance with the hydrogen-powered ones.