Workshop: Clean bus procurement

This EU workshop took place on 11 - 12 December 2013. All materials including presentations are available to download below.

Bremen, Germany

Topic - The workshop focused on the procurement of clean buses under the Clean Vehicles Directive (CVD). It looked at the background and objectives of the CVD and how bus procurement is carried out in practice. The workshop presented experiences from different cities in clean bus procurement, and discussed a variety of important topics which procurers face such as:

Clean Bus Procurement – objectives of operators and authorities
What are clean buses? – Comparison of technology options, e.g. diesel Euro V and VI, CNG, LNG, hydrogen, fuel-cell, hybrids
Towards more electrification – how is this reflected in the CVD/Life Cycle Costing approach?

Study Visit - During a half-day study visit, participants saw the Bremen concept of sustainable mobility in practice. It showcased Bremen's public transport system, which combines an electric tram, conventional EEV diesel buses and diesel-electric buses.

Background – Clean vehicles in Bremen - Since 1998, Bremen has been testing various kinds of hybrid buses. Since 2006, all new buses have fulfilled the EEV emission standard and now almost the entire fleet meets the EEV standard. With the electric tram as the core of the public transport system, Bremen is considering further electrification in the bus sector and is looking at various technological solutions: from pure battery to full electric trolley-battery-hybrid buses.

This would lead to a reduction in noise and local emissions – but how are these benefits reflected in Life Cycle Cost comparisons? How useful is the Clean Vehicles Directive and its German equivalent for such considerations?