Abstract
From an economic perspective, the purchase cost of an electric bus is greater than that of a conventional one. This results from the additional components of the bus drivetrain and the costly charging infrastructure. However, it should be noted that electric bus ensures greener and more sustainable public transport. The presented study focuses on the economic and energy efficiency analysis of city buses with different types of driving system evaluated forselected urban and suburban routes. The routes differ in terms of the number of journeys per day, elevation, the daily distance travelled, and the daily operating time. The results demonstrate that driving conditions can affect economic efficiency. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) method used in the study shows that electric buses represent the highest TCO values among the vehicles taken into account. However, for the TCO calculated for electric and hybrid buses, fuel (energy) costs have a much lower share than for the TCO of conventional buses.
Highlights
The largest part of the fleet of Polish companies operating urban public transport have buses equipped with conventional diesel propulsion systems
On the basis of the results, it can be seen that the route and the daily courses have a significant impact on the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) values
It was shown that the costs of owning and operating a city bus depend on the type of drive train
Summary
The largest part of the fleet of Polish companies operating urban public transport have buses equipped with conventional diesel propulsion systems. Positive information is the growing yearby-year share of buses powered by alternative fuels or equipped with alternative drives. The increase in the number of low-emission vehicles is associated with the increasing level of ecological awareness of the society. Environmental protection, and air quality are the main reasons why Polish cities are trying to replace conventional buses with low-emission vehicles. Adopted more than two years ago, the Responsible Development Strategy [20] assumes the dissemination of transport based on electric buses and other vehicles using electric drive trains. The Ministry of Development has assumed that by 2021 1,000 electric urban buses will be in operation on Polish roads. With the help of EU funds and Polish government programs, city carriers can count on cofinancing for the purchase of alternative powered vehicles
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
