The Maharashtra government declared on Monday that it has become the part of Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative TUMI E-Bus mission for E-bus services in the state, therefore Mumbai has become the first Indian city to join the mission. It will implement a customized work plan for deploying e-buses in the city. The TUMI e-bus mission comprises a technical assistance strategy and a plan to develop a long-term adoption roadmap for Mumbai.

In the presence of Maharashtra Tourism and Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray, a letter was signed by BEST. The company wants to convert its present bus fleet into electric buses by 2023. Mumbai will connect to mentee cities network meetings and engage in knowledge-sharing, the representatives from Mumbai will also meet with global; national and local partners to share e-bus implementation experiences and ideas about areas of improvement.

The initiative has been taken in the view of ongoing climate change and air quality, as Aaditya Thackeray said,’ The transition to electric is necessary for all vehicle segments, big or small, to fast track the achievement of climate and air quality goals. E-buses can play a significant role in this transition. The mission has come up intending to build a wide coalition of public and private-sector groups to make the transition to E-buses in 20 ‘deep dive cities’ and further expand it to 100 mentee cities by the end of 2022. Under the UN Secretary-Action General’s Climate-Friendly Transportation (ACT) Initiative, announced in 2019, by 2025 more than 1,00,000 electric buses are planned for further bids and procurements in 500 cities. For a successful implementation of this plan, Mumbai will be provided with technical assistance in terms of the development of technical specifications of e-buses, performance evaluation procedures, infrastructure design, route operation, and the development of public policies.

It was founded by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the core group of organizations such as Deutsche Gesellschaft fὕr Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability and, The International Association of Public transport (UITP) and World Resource Institute (WRI) will work in collaboration to implement the mission.

After the implementation of the TUMI E-bus mission in cities, they will turn out to be role models to other cities. The E-bus mission will help to tackle air, noise pollution, and CO2 emission as well. When the demand for E-buses increase, it will require advanced technology to work. These are the 20 deep dive cities selected for the development and implementation of individual E-bus roadmaps:

• Mexico City, Mexico
• Bogotá- Colombia
• Campinas- Brazil
• Salvador- Brazil
• Rio de Janeiro- Brazil
• Curitiba- Brazil
• São Paulo- Brazil
• Barranquilla- Colombia
• Kampala- Uganda
• Mumbai- India
• Jakarta- Indonesia

In India, major cities like Mumbai struggle with traffic noise, increasing pollution that causes unhealthy living conditions for people. In these conditions, people tend to develop respiratory diseases. The initiation of E-bus services will certainly help tackle these problems by evolving a healthy and fresh atmosphere.