Skip to main content

Electric buses can ‘save millions’ for society and the environment

A city with half a million inhabitants would save about US$11.8 million per year if its buses ran on electricity instead of diesel, according to analysis conducted the Volvo Group and audit and advisory firm KPMG. The analysis has taken into consideration such factors as noise, travel time, emissions, energy use, taxes and the use of natural resources. The analysis was based on a city with about half a million inhabitants and 400 buses. If the buses were run on electricity instead of diesel, the total an
September 29, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
A city with half a million inhabitants would save about US$11.8 million per year if its buses ran on electricity instead of diesel, according to analysis conducted the 609 Volvo Group and audit and advisory firm 1981 KPMG. The analysis has taken into consideration such factors as noise, travel time, emissions, energy use, taxes and the use of natural resources.

The analysis was based on a city with about half a million inhabitants and 400 buses. If the buses were run on electricity instead of diesel, the total annualised societal saving would be about US$11.8 million. Among other areas, the savings stem from reduced noise and air pollution, which is estimated to lead to decreased care costs of up to US$2.8 million. The annual reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would total 33,000 tons, corresponding to about 3,000 Swedish households.

“Standard investment appraisals do not take into account all of the costs that impact society and the environment. Therefore, to quantify all of the aspects, we have now calculated the monetary value of an electric bus line,” says Niklas Gustafsson, head of Sustainability at the Volvo Group. “The results show that irrespective of the number of parameters taken into consideration, electric buses comprise the leading public transport solution.”

“Electric buses are an excellent example of an innovation that can create substantial societal values,” says Daniel Dellham, KPMG. “By supplementing standard financial analysis with socioeconomic and environmental factors, one arrives at a more complete picture of the investment’s impact on companies and society.”

In June 2015, a new electric bus line was opened in Gothenburg with the aim of developing and testing new solutions for sustainable public transport in partnership with the Volvo Group and several partners from industry, research and society.

“The bus line is one of the most modern in the world and interest is incredibly high, not least due to the buses being completely silent and emission-free, and being run on electricity from wind and hydro power,” says Niklas Gustafsson. “But the innovation aspect primarily pertains to the complete transportation system. A system that we can now show meets society’s socioeconomic and environmental challenges.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Making the case for interstate tolling
    May 30, 2014
    A provision in the Grow America Act, introduced to Congress last month by Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, proposes lifting a decades-old ban on tolling existing interstate general purpose lanes. According Daniel Papiernik, HNTB Corporation's mid-Atlantic toll services leader, writing in Roll Call, recent opposition to the proposal is short-sighted. He claims that relying on revenues derived from the gas tax is simply an unsustainable way of funding the nation’s aging roads, bridges and tunnels
  • Greater Manchester signs significant new service contract with Siemens
    April 19, 2012
    Greater Manchester Combined Authority with Transport for Greater Manchester have awarded to Siemens one of the most significant service contracts of its kind for the long-term maintenance of traffic signalling equipment across all ten districts of Greater Manchester. Under Transport for Greater Manchester’s guidance, the service contract is designed to secure substantial energy savings and reduce carbon emissions.
  • Emovis: Rethinking smart enforcement in the tolling industry
    June 3, 2024
    Know your paying customers well and your violators even better! This almost sounds like a line you’d hear in an old Western classic movie. Actually, it is a credo to live by for tolling agencies, as Miguel Ainsa, operation director at Emovis, explains
  • Cost benefit: just $25 boosts pedestrian safety in Florida
    April 29, 2019
    A relatively straightforward change to the way that pedestrians cross the street in a Florida city has made a significant safety improvement. And what’s more, it was cheap, finds David Crawford Installing a lead pedestrian interval (LPI) system at 25 central business district signalised intersections in the Florida city of Lakeland has cut numbers of incidents involving pedestrians by some 60% - at a cost of US$25 for 30 minutes' work, according to traffic operations manager Angelo Rao.