Clap hands for Haarlem

A chemical technologist who previously worked for Shell, Peter has held his Haarlem post for six years. Throughout that time, he has been a vociferous supporter of compressed natural gas (CNG) as a readily available, cost-effective alternative to diesel.

Early adopters
Haarlem was the first city in the Netherlands to initiate a CNG project six years ago when, in a bid to reduce particulate matter (PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels, it investigated the possibility of bringing CNG vehicles to the Dutch market.

Turning point
At first, difficulties obtaining imported CNG vehicles meant that the municipality had to convert a number of its existing petrol models. However, as public awareness of air quality issues grew, support – and therefore demand – for CNG technology increased.

“It was a turning point four or five years ago, when people began to realise we had a problem with air quality,” explains Peter. “With increasing awareness came increasing demand, and the importers began to bring CNG vehicles in. Finally, we were able to buy the vehicles here, rather than converting them ourselves.”

My kingdom for a bus
But the vehicles in question were passenger and haulage vehicles, and Haarlem, having seen the success of CNG and biogas in public transport in Lille, had set its sights on buses. Peter wrote a proposal, based on the experiences of Lille, which he submitted to the province of North Holland in 2005. As a result of this, in January 2006, CNG buses operated by Connexxion began to run in Haarlem.

“Within three months of rolling out the project, 85 CNG buses were running in the Haarlem/IJmond region; that’s a hundred per cent of the fleet,” says Peter. “In Haarlem itself, where there are still diesel buses coming from the Amsterdam and Leiden regions, around half of the fleet is CNG.”

Proof
Eager to prove the effectiveness of the CNG buses at improving air quality, Haarlem measured NO2 levels at sixteen sites around the city, taking readings three months before the start of the project and again one year after the buses were introduced. The results were overwhelmingly positive.

“At the sites along the CNG bus routes traffic contributions to NO2 levels were reduced by half. At testing sites away from the bus routes, in parks and open, green spaces, the levels remained the same – which unequivocally supports the conclusion that the deployment of CNG buses alone was responsible for the reductions,” says Peter.

Downplay
There are still significant barriers to CNG transport in the Netherlands, however. Notably the ongoing lobbying by diesel engine manufacturer Daf, which seeks to portray CNG as a costly alternative, and major oil companies keen not to lose out on diesel sales.

But while diesel engine manufacturers and oil companies may be eager to downplay the viability of CNG, word of Haarlem’s success is already spreading across the Netherlands and serving as an example to other cities, like The Hague, which is also rolling out a CNG bus fleet.

Next stop: biogas
This is good news, says Peter, but progress must not stop there. Looking ahead, he explains, the next challenge will be switching from CNG to green or biogas, in order to address CO2 emissions; shifting the focus from air quality to climate change.

“The Netherlands has plenty of cows, pigs, and chickens; plenty of waste,” explains Peter. “Therefore we have plenty of resources for producing biogas, and it should be possible to produce billions of cubic metres without having to sacrifice agricultural land; a definite advantage in the biofuels debate.”