Testing innovations for increased energy efficiency of electric buses: evidence from the EBSF_2 project

EBSF_2 is a three-year research project which came to an end in April 2018. The project was led by the International Association of Public Transport and funded by the European Union with the aim of increasing attractiveness and efficiency of urban bus systems. Real-life demonstrations in 12 cities addressed diverse areas for innovations, but for several test sites the main goal was to deploy and test solutions for increased energy efficiency of urban bus fleets. Optimize the energy management, lower the energy needed for on-board auxiliaries, including heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, and thus minimizing the impact on the total energy consumption of electric buses and their operation, were the tasks to be accomplished. The paper describes how the topic energy efficiency was addressed within the EBSF_2 demonstrators. The assessment methodology designed to measure the performance variations in each demonstrator and cross-case is presented, together with the testing scenarios and the main results achieved in four demonstrators impacting the energy efficiency domain.