Driving the energy transition in mobility

The challenge
Innovation can redefine a sector. This is especially true for the transition to zero emission in public bus transportation. It involves much more than replacing the diesel tank with a battery - the operation changes fundamentally. It raises new questions, for example: Is our operation equally robust as before with diesel? What locations should be selected for the charging operations? Should we invest millions in larger batteries? Or faster chargers? What if a charger location is unavailable? How to maximize battery life?

Why we became involved
A new strategy was needed to deal with this increased number of variables and form a truly optimized network – one that maintains a healthy bottom line and provides quality for thousands and thousands of passengers. Being the first to truly master this new way of thinking presents a huge competitive advantage in an otherwise low margin business.

The result
After analysing passenger demand and behaviour, technical bus capabilities, route characteristics and requirements from the Public Transport Authority (PTA), we developed a thorough understanding of the new “zero-emission-economics”. Together with experts from the client, we came to an integral design for a very robust, efficient, and traveler-oriented network operated by hundreds of electric buses. More than 120.000 passengers each day benefit from an improved and more tailored service. And tens of millions of kg’s CO2 are saved every year. 

More holistically, from the findings in this project we developed a method to design robust and efficient electrical bus operations. This provided the client with tools and insight to trade-off technical bus specifications, economics, and network robustness for operations in other areas. As a result, bus selection, charging strategy and staff scheduling are decomplexified and more agile than before.