New Delhi, May 29 (IANS) Among a slew of measures to improve energy security in the country and decarbonise the road and highways sector, India is likely to bring a mandate on blending isobutanol with diesel as early as this year, Roads Transport and Highways Secretary V. Umashankar said on Friday.

In his remarks at the CII Multimodal Transportation and Logistics Summit here, Umashankar said: “Blending of diesel has been looked into with great seriousness. Bharat Petroleum is already undertaking strategic research for iso-butanol blending with diesel. And the results are very encouraging. It is quite likely that the blending mandate will start coming in somewhere later this year. And diesel consumption is almost two times that of petrol consumption. So, the impact on blending in terms of diesel is concerned will have a far greater impact on our energy security than even petrol blending.”

He also said that the Ministry is looking at bringing a draft notification on truck-trailer soon, for building an ecosystem that needs battery swapping and battery charging for electric heavy-duty commercial vehicles.

He pointed out that for battery swapping, several points with this kind of infrastructure will have to be provided.

“If you look at battery charging, then it is going to take a good amount of time for the charging to happen. So, does the truck lie idle at that point in time? So, what we are looking at is what we call a tractor-trailer interchangeability. Where you don’t need to swap the battery, you swap the entire front part of the truck. So, we have detachable containers, so the trailer is detachable,” he said.

On the government’s experiments with hydrogen logistics, the Secretary said: “The results are very good. The key cost is comparable with respect to other forms of logistics travel. It’s not high. The only high-cost element is the hydrogen refuelling stations. And presently in the pilot projects, government support is being provided.”

He added that recently, in Delhi, hydrogen buses at the public transport level have also been introduced between Delhi and Faridabad and Delhi and Noida. “Because the hydrogen refuelling station has already been supported and set up under this scheme. On fuelling, it travels 450 km before it needs a refuel. So if you take Delhi-Mumbai as a corridor, then maybe three refuelling stations along the highway at the new expressway,” Umashankar said.

Additionally, he also revealed that Multi-Lane Free Flow (MLFF), the barrier-less tolling system that eliminates the need for vehicles to stop or slow down at toll plazas, is likely to be introduced in the “forthcoming year”.

“This (MLFF) has already been introduced in two toll plazas, and it’s working very successfully. And the third one is likely to go live in the next 8-10 days. We plan to expand this to all the toll plazas, four-lane plus toll plazas across the country within the forthcoming year. Along with that is an advanced traffic management system that we are going to put in place. We have got the first proposal for the Delhi NCR approved. And the issuance of the bids and the implementation of the project will start very shortly,” he added.

To increase the average speed of vehicles that move on the roads and highways, the Ministry plans to focus on expressways and access-controlled highways so that slow-moving and fast-moving traffic can be segregated, he added.

–IANS

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