Bangkok buses to test air purifiers

By The Nation

 

 

The Transport Ministry will install air purifiers on the roofs of Bangkok buses this month, starting with 387 Bangkok Mass Transit Authority vehicles and fitting trucks as well if the results are good.

 

Minister Saksayam Chidchob said plans were being finalised with the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, the National Science and Technology Development Agency and Chiang Mai University (CMU) to outfit the 387 buses on 129 routes. 

 

Unlike home units, the air purifiers will require no electrical power, simply gulping in air as the vehicles move.

 

A CMU simulation found that a unit mounted on a car moving at 20 kilometres per hour could purify 20,000 cubic metres of air per hour. 

 

 

The average adult breathes 0.5 cubic metre of air per hour, so theoretically, a bus with a purifier could supply fresh air to 40,000 people in one hour. 

 

The Department of Land Transport has yet to determine whether a bus even moving faster than 20kph would produce enough purified air just by its movement.

 

The units are expected to be inexpensive. The changeable filter costs around Bt500 and is good for 400 hours – 2-3 weeks. 

 

Saksayam said the ministry might also design a purifier for small vehicles including motorcycles but would not make their installation obligatory. 

 

“There are millions of cars on the road, so this might help clean the air,” he said.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30381633

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-02-05

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Aaaand who's going to maintain them and change the filters... expect a bus driving by with particles flying into the air from the clogged unit.

If the filters are changed regularly this should be a good idea. 

Has to be moving 20kph? What is the point if when it's most needed in peak hour they won't work 

Whaty happens when a bus with a purifier is directly behind one of those old belching red buses with the wooden floors from 1946 ?

in the meantime, these buses will still spew black clouds of smoke

You would think it would be cheaper and healthier in the long run to stop the crop burning, regulate the factory emissions and get rid of the deisel cars..... just throwing it out there..????

17 hours ago, webfact said:

The average adult breathes 0.5 cubic metre of air per hour, so theoretically, a bus with a purifier could supply fresh air to 40,000 people in one hour.

 

What a load of BS, a single puff from those bus and trucks will turn it into a solid sheet of carbon and combustion residues. Pollution needs to be stopped not removed.

 

It will not supply fresh air, it only filters out particulate matter. It can filter up to 40,000 m^3/h, assuming you filter a small 50ug per cubic meter (low by BKK standards) and drive it only 6 hours per day that's a whole 12g of pm2.5 that will be trapped in your filter, without even accounting for larger dust particles it will be rendered useless in no time.

... Also, no vehicle in Bangkok can maintain 20km/h during the day

 

I'd love to see the scientific research behind this wheeze, which sounds about as likely to work as the paddle boats employed to fight Bangkok floodwaters.

6 hours ago, Jimbo2014 said:

You would think it would be cheaper and healthier in the long run to stop the crop burning, regulate the factory emissions and get rid of the deisel cars..... just throwing it out there..????

They dont need to get rid of diesel cars just the old ones , the new diesels aren't that bad . 

1 hour ago, Nanaplaza666 said:

They dont need to get rid of diesel cars just the old ones , the new diesels aren't that bad . 

Any diesel engine is terrible - there are over 30 carcinogens emitted from Diesel engines.  The main problem is most Thai people dont undertake maintenance.  After a few years the even a good engine wears down and emits much higher quantities of pollutants.

The air quality will improve at traffic lights as the buses increase speed just in case it go's green ????

Never looking at what the core issue is, someone sitting in a backroom thinking of an idea that might work, but as usual, the horse has bolted before the gates have opened.

 

Go back to school, ban all burning, get those cars and trucks with the black smoke off of the roads, apply heavy fines, but then that would mean getting the comedy Kappers off of their rear ends.

Forget finding solutions for the sources-keep on with the idiocy  ????

Is this ministry for real and is the minister himself of healthy state of mind? 

How about starting to take all those smoke belching buses, in service for more than 30 years and hardly ever seen a maintenance shop, OFF the road? The BMA would be a good place to start with their fleet of top polluters. Next, go after the private cars. Exceeding the limits = give 'em one week to fix it, otherwise the vehicle gets impounded, fixed by the state and put back onto the road against compensation of repair costs plus a juicy fine.

Works wonders - except in Thailand where all the rules and regulations are here to be bent, ignored or forgotten! 

With a complete absence of police on the roads, every factory in my area has ancient busses, mostly reconstructed with scrap metal and polyfiller, that pump out huge clouds from their exhausts even at idling speeds. 

 

They're obviously too busy getting their hair clipped every two days and practising the new (extremely comical if you've seen it) salutes with the chest puff and head twitch.

Edited February 7, 20206 yr by ben2talk

Why not weld an extension to the exhaust pipe and feed it directly into the roof top filter.

Don't blame me. I didn't start this.

Note date and time of post in case someone else invents it.

Edited February 7, 20206 yr by overherebc

Adding to last post.

Don't forget to take into considerstion any low overhead restrictions on some routes, bridges, road signs etc.

Hanging wires????

Jesus.  Just STOP THE FARMERS FROM BURNING THEIR FIELDS!