Ideas to remove burnt electric buses from multi-storey depots sought

Equipment must extract bus quickly, without it touching the ground or depot’s structures

- Lee Nian Tjoe

As Singapore gears up to run more electric buses, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) is looking for ways to quickly remove a burnt one from a multi-storey depot and submerge it into a water tank to prevent a fire from reigniting.

The LTA had on April 17 called for proposals to provide equipment that can extract a burnt electric bus by March 2025, to prevent damage to other vehicles and infrastructure if an electric bus catches fire at a depot.

Responding to queries, the LTA said that even though the risk of electric bus fires is low, it wanted to "explore different equipment" to manage battery fires because the nature of such fires is different from conventional ones.

Lithium-ion, which is the most prevalent battery technology used to power electric vehicles (EVs), burns at around 2,760 deg C - hot enough to melt steel and concrete.

Diesel engines, in contrast, burn at around 700 deg C.

"Even when the e-bus fire is extinguished, there remains a possibility of reignition, which could be a result of sparks created by parts of the burnt bus being in contact with the ground or depot structures during the removal process," the LTA said on its Land Transport Innovation Portal, describing the challenge.