Why the Transition to Bus Fleet Electrification is Accelerating Around the Globe

Mass transit agencies in cities all over the world are increasingly responding to the call to initiate positive climate action to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by defining and establishing mandates to transition to sustainable zero-emission bus fleets.

By far, the world leader in bus electrification is China, with some 98% of the world’s electrified buses operating within the country’s borders, including in the city of Shenzen, which boasts a municipal bus fleet of more than 16,000 vehicles.

In Europe, where centralized funding agencies are actively supporting the development of clean bus projects, electrified bus fleets can be found in cities and towns across the Netherlands, Germany, the UK and France. In the Asia-Pacific region, Japan, India, Pakistan and South Korea also have major bus electrification initiatives either undertaken or in the works.

In North America, the pace of change has particularly quickened over just the past one to two years, with public transit bus fleet electrification initiatives being introduced in large metropolises like Toronto, Washington, D.C. and Seattle, as well as many small and medium-sized cities such as Waterloo, Ont. and Edmonton, Alta.

The widespread growth of politically powerful voices demanding governments, agencies and business organizations around the world take meaningful action to address climate change is driving many transit agencies to rapidly accelerate plans to electrify their bus fleets.

The transportation sector has been identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the largest contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the U.S., with surface transportation such as cars, trucks and buses accounting for the bulk of those GHG emissions. Thus, tangible efforts by public transit agencies to adopt zero-emission practices within their transportation fleets are generally high-visibility public initiatives that are often positively received as an important step forward in the battle to stem human-caused climate change.

However, while electrification can offer both significant environmental and operating cost benefits over traditional fossil-fueled buses, the associated capital costs to establish a new zero-emission fleet can be a barrier to transitioning to a zero-emission fleet, due in particular to electric-charging infrastructure requirements.

The fact is, vehicle electrification technology has matured enough in recent years that it is now feasibly practical to implement a fleet-wide electrification, but many key considerations still exist. Switching an entire municipal transit fleet over to electrified vehicles is not as simple as buying new buses to replace existing ones.