Abstract
The life cycle cost (LCC) methodology provides understanding of economic aspects of urban buses equipped with different types of propulsion. The LCC analysis delivers the sum of costs related to the acquisition, operation, repair and maintenance disposal as well as the costs for the each bus power train technology. The method allows to take into account all costs for the whole vehicle’s life cycle and creates a recondition for precise information database for decision making. In addition to the economic factors LCC can be extended to environmental aspects such as greenhouse gases emissions. The environmental impacts of the vehicle lifetime may be presented in monetary values. The paper presents the Life Cycle Cost analysis undertaken for urban buses fitted with conventional, series hybrid and parallel hybrid drives. Provided LCC analysis includes the economic and environmental aspects. The paper also delivers the evaluation of the total air pollutant emissions for all stages of lifetime of the each analysed urban bus. The results show that the hybrids have slightly lower life cycle cost than conventional bus. Moreover, hybrid buses were found to have lower life cycle environmental impacts.
Highlights
The urban transportation companies have taken actions to replace the diesel-powered buses by alternative fuelled or alternative powered buses, such as: compressed natural gas (CNG) fuelled or liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuelled, biodiesel fuelled, battery electric drive system, hybrid electric and fuel cell or hydrogen powered
Levels of emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx), particulate matter (PMx) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) per one kilometre of total mileage were analysed for the environmental life cycle assessment of city buses
The nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur oxides (SOx) emission levels for the life cycles of the analysed vehicles were presented on the Fig. 3
Summary
The urban transportation companies have taken actions to replace the diesel-powered buses by alternative fuelled or alternative powered buses, such as: compressed natural gas (CNG) fuelled or liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuelled, biodiesel fuelled, battery electric drive system, hybrid electric (diesel-electric drive system) and fuel cell or hydrogen powered. Determining of the LCC can be a useful tool to compare costs associated with the production and operation of vehicles equipped with different types of propulsion systems. The LCC – Life Cycle Cost method allows to estimate costs ranging from the phase of vehicle production through every day use and operation to disposal phase as waste. The life cycle cost estimation includes a detailed economic analysis, including investment costs (i.e. purchase, registration, additional necessary infrastructure), costs of use (fuel, electrical energy, repairs and maintenance costs, insurance) as well as decommissioning costs (recycling) [20]. Level of LCC is strictly associated with fuel price, duty cycle, driving conditions (e.g. operation in city centre, suburbs, or on highways) as well as annual mileage. Some studies [10, 11] have been performed for the evaluation of Life Cycle Cost for electric buses in urban conditions
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