Under the Dutch Zero-Emission Bus Agreement, administrations at the national, provincial and regional level have pledged to have their bus fleets 100% zero-emission by 2030. CE Delft was commissioned by PitPoint to determine the total social costs of the various alternative fuels/drive trains for public-transport buses. To this end the financial and environmental costs of concession-operated buses were analysed, estimating the total service-life costs for concessionary fleets using the latest available data.
The scenario calculations indicate that major CO2-emissions reductions can be cost-effectively achieved if the transition to zero-emission is combined with use of biofuels. A transition using HVO as a fuel is relatively expensive. For new concession tenders the SCBA methodology presented here has advantages for establishing the most cost-effective zero-emission transition route. Using TCO calculations, as in this (and other) studies, provides a good means of optimizing for both CO2 emissions reduction and costs.
For PitPoint we also provided a computing tool that allows assumptions and input values to be adjusted. For each specific situation user-designed transition scenarios can be fed in and the social costs and benefits per tonne avoided CO2 emissions calculated.