Industry pulls together for clean bus future
Can you imagine a transport infrastructure powered by the internet? How can we have cities with less noise, congestion and air pollution sooner?
What was once the remit of science fiction, is fast becoming reality with our cities and infrastructure closer to an electric future than you may realize.
Today, we participated in an event to mark the European Commission’s introduction of a European, Clean Bus Deployment Initiative. As a leader in the field of electric vehicle infrastructure, we are proud to be involved and to be at the forefront of the e-mobility revolution.
Intent to collaborate for change
Alongside the Paris climate agreement, this new EU initiative will see the launch of a Declaration of Intent, which will encourage the major industry players and governments, vehicle manufacturers, transport operators and regional and local authorities, to promote the use of and roll-out of clean, alternatively fueled buses across Europe.
Despite Europe lagging in its adoption of electric vehicles, compared to its Asian and Chinese counterparts where there have been over 173,000 electric buses on the road since 2015, the tide is turning. This new EU declaration will go some way to cement Europe’s future in electric vehicles and build on the development of a sustainable transport network for every citizen.
Already, many vehicle manufacturers have taken the leap forward and are launching next generation, electric vehicles, powered by an infrastructure of charging points.
At the start of July, Volvo launched its new 7900 Electric bus and encouraged passengers at the launch to ‘Think Electric….listen to your city and go where people want to go’. It promised more flexibility with an electric network taking people to new destinations above, over and underground.
The Clean Bus Deployment Initiative is the first of its kind and will further encourage collaborative working and action between infrastructure providers, transport operators and bus manufacturers. This is in line with ABB’s desire to promote interoperability to make it easier to grow the infrastructure.
The Initiative looks to increase the current share of alternatively fueled buses in the European bus fleet, from approximately 10-12 percent to 30 percent by 2025. The declaration will also encourage the growth of zero-emission buses and show how low-emission mobility can bring significant economic and social benefits.
In the United States alone, the transportation sector represents 27 percent of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions nationally. Diesel buses are one of the major emitters of GHG within the sector.
Every zero-emission bus can eliminate 1,690 tons of CO2 over its 12-year lifespan. This is equivalent to taking 27 cars off the road. These buses also eliminate 10 tons of nitrogen oxides and 159 kilograms of diesel particulate matter, improving air quality in the communities that they serve. Taking these pollutants out of the air we breathe will reduce premature deaths due to heart and lung disease and strokes, with obvious economic benefits to our health and social services.
ABB has been a pioneer in enabling smarter, greener and emission free transport networks across the globe through our EV charging infrastructure and our ABB Ability™ platform, which provides a scalable, end to end network management for commercial vehicles such as buses. It is only by working together as an industry, with local and national government bodies that we can drive the change to clean mobility.