Electric-bus routes in hilly urban areas: Overview and challenges

The electrification of public transport in cities is expanding, and fully electric buses (EBs) show great promise because of their high energy efficiency. We present the state of the art for electric-bus-related technologies, taking a closer look at the influence of the route's topography and the climate on battery demands. Included is a brief overview of the EB routes in Europe, which reveals a lack of very demanding benchmark routes, where new technologies from the perspective of seamless driving in difficult conditions could be tested. The trial EB routes set up in many cities allow testing under a variety of driving conditions; however, there is still a need for benchmark routes located in challenging environments with some demanding sections. We suggest a new, demanding, hilly benchmark route that provides the means for a technical evaluation of urban-transport electrification in a geographically specific area with particularly challenging driving conditions.

Automated summary

The electrification of public transport in cities is expanding, and there is a great potential for fully electric buses (EBs) due to their high energy efficiency. This article provides an overview of the current state of electric-bus-related technologies and investigates the impact of route topography and climate on battery demands. There is a lack of challenging benchmark routes in Europe to test new technologies for seamless driving in difficult conditions. Although many cities have set up trial EB routes for testing under various driving conditions, there is still a need for benchmark routes in challenging environments to evaluate urban-transport electrification.