Different fuelling technologies for urban transport bus service in an Italian big town:: economic, environmental and social considerations

In the energy field, an important cause of pollutant emissions is linked to ground transportation. The increase of the ratio between energy consumption due to transport and the gross internal product has been 1.12% per year from 1970. All these energy consumption increases have been made while using fossil fuel with serious environmental consequences on the local and global scale and reduction of fuel availability. Environmental policy points towards improvement by cleaner fuels utilisation and increase of engine efficiencies. In this paper, a specific application will be discussed concerning the public transport service in an Italian urban area: a bus fleet motorised with fuel cell systems will be compared with traditional buses using fossil fuels. The comparison will be done in energy, economic, environmental and social terms. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.