A week in the Alps

I spent last week down-hill skiing in the alps. As we do most years we chose to go by coach; 20 hours from Gothenburg to the Rauris valley in the middle of Austria. I kind of like the time we get to slow down in speed and the concept of meeting our fellow travelers before the fun starts with the skiing safari. The concept includes taking the bus every morning to different resorts, and the modern coaches are really comfortable, silent and pleasant to ride.

This year the Austrian alps showed its best side with plenty of snow. One day it was too much wind and massive snow fall, which closed the road to our valley for some 16 hours. But, who cares when all sloops present fluffy powder wherever you look! My new all mountain skies, of a brand that my sponsor contract prevents me from revealing , were really extremely user friendly and uncomplicated. Now I understand how those offpiste films are made – with the right gears it’s all so much easier.

In Vagrain our bus stopped next to a brand new Volvo 9900 with the Euro V/EEV D13 engine (see picture below). I had a chat with the driver and it turned out that it was on its first trip. The D13 provides a torque and that has made it a winner in the Alps. The I-shift gear box presents a fuel consumption of stunningly low values. Last year was a record year for Volvo coaches in Austria. The rumor of excellent performance has spread rapidly and now the new Volvo coach range has become a winner for small as well as big operators.

Volvo 9900 with D13 engine in Austria

Helsinki Environmental Seminars

In Finland the VTT institute performs environmental test of new and old buses. They have built a valuable database and can nowadays draw very detailed conclusions concerning emissions of nitrogen oxides, particulates, greenhouse gases and fuel consumption. Lots of myths can be terminated by the VTT environmental studies.

Today VTT, with presentations by Kimmo Erkkilä and Nils-Olof Nylund, hosted a seminar where both projects from the present and the past were summarized. It can for example be seen that the fuel consumption from Euro I to today has not improved dramatically. Only for Euro IV, the introduction of AdBlue enabled some reduction. It is also seen that gas buses have historically had much lower emissions than diesel buses. However, as the absolute emissions decrease the difference in absolute terms also decrease.

It was said that VTT is about to publish one of the most detailed reports on environmental performance of buses for public transports ever and I expect it to become a reference book for environmental impact of buses. It is expected to bring important information to public transport authorities as well as operators and bus manufacturers. I will look out for this publication when released in the beginning of the summer.

I got the task to review future trends with focus on electro mobility. The Volvo hybrid has now been on sale for more than a year and the sales have escalated gradually. Volvo Buses is very proud and honored by the warm reception all over the world. We have now sold about 450 Volvo hybrid buses with the in-house ISAM technology. Apart from the radical fuel saving, the electric start function that allows silent and emission free take-off from bus stops has brought most appreciation lately. The reliability, better than diesel, is now taken for granted.

Electromobility in Graz

Yesterday I visited the electromobility conference in Graz, Austria. When other parts of the world initiates massive programs to support the introduction of electric cars, trucks and buses, Europe normally discusses the economic crisis and little or nothing is done on the federal level.

But, the city and region of Graz shows that there is hope. Where higher authorities fail, common sense of regions and cities inspires. Austria has many strong suppliers for the European automotive industry. For the region of Graz it is a matter of survival to keep a high competence and to support the upcoming technologies. City of Graz is promoting electric cars through charging posts and by enabling car poles.

City of Graz electrical vehicle fleet

Graz was one of the early adopters of the Volvo Hybrid bus. An interesting presentation was made by Mario J. Müller at FIBAG/SFL. The electrification of a small “garden truck” was in one way seen as an interesting upcoming product, but more interestingly as an enabler for new architecture and city planning. In the future, small professional vehicles make it possible to close areas in the winter and still allow zero emissions, low noise vehicles to deliver supplies to restaurants and shops. New architecture can open up for clean transports all the way to your office desk. Possibly it will be a surprise to meet an electric garden truck on the sixth floor in the future office, but when architecture and transports develop in synergy, new arenas and solutions appear. And by then it might be the most natural event in the world.

Volvo Hybrid Tuck now also running in Austria

At the conference Volvo was represented by both buses and trucks. The common hybrid technology was the main subject of the day. I’m very glad to be able to welcome our truck colleagues to the market. We already have some examples of cities that have chosen to invest in both Volvo Buses and Volvo Trucks using the same workshops and technicians for the service.

Volvo Hybrid Bus in traffic in the City of Graz

Graz city has “branded” their electromobility initiative in the typical colors and patterns seen on the hybrid bus.

Fuel consumption Volvo Buses India

Volvo Buses is proud of the position on the Indian market. One of the strong contributors is the low fuel consumption that we achieve by using our “top of the line” engines. I frequently get questions about what is “normal” and what can be expected when it comes to fuel consumption. And, the answer is always: “It depends mainly on: driving speed, idle time share, air conditioner usage, topography and driver behavior”.

Mostly the average speed is used as the sole parameter for characterizing the driving behavior. This is a very rough approximation. I have looked at the overall statistics of the Volvo Buses and coaches in India.

When assessing the B7R and RLE buses in India the average time share is:

Idle: 24% (which is very low in an international perspective)

Drive: 76%

The contribution to the drive part is (summarize to 76%):

Pedal (acceleration): 46%

Breaking: 2.5%

Coasting/”Sailing”/engine breaking (no pedal): 16%

Top gear driving: 11.5%

Fuel consumption versus drive speed (km/h). Note that average speed in India is significantly lower than “drive speed”.

When assessing the fuel consumption, looking at data of what is normal and what is achieved by other buses at similar conditions can be very helpful. Still, the picture of the fuel consumption of all buses must be seen in the light of the variations caused by all parameters, although here only plotted versus the drive speed in km/h.

A high idle share, a demanding topography or an aggressive driving behavior all have high impact. Buses driven in hot areas with high utilization of the air condition always have a significantly higher fuel consumption than the corresponding buses at more moderately temperated regions.

The very low fuel consumption reached by Volvo Buses in India contribute to low operating costs and high residual value.

New Volvo Buses in India

Volvo Bus India has become the jewel in the Volvo Bus crown. When I last visited India, our factory in Bangalore showed first class performance in all aspects. From my viewpoint of course the environmental performance was of certain interest.

The energy use per complete bus, during manufacturing, is the lowest benchmark measured ever within Volvo Buses. With one MWh per bus the Hosakote in Bangalore factory sets a clear bench mark for the rest of our production facilities. Also the amount of scrapping (including transportation materials) and waste water amounts are of leading standards among our complete bus factories.

Our product development department in India increases gradually. As a global company, the Bangalore subsidy of the product development is involved in the global bus development. The experts in India contribute to the development on several markets, just as the engineers in Sweden, Poland, Brazil, Mexico and Canada may contribute to the development of the buses built in Bangalore.

The new technology development of Volvo Buses for India has now led to a full new product range:
1. Volvo 9400PX Multi-axle at 14.5m, PX platform & 11-litre engine
2. Volvo 9400XL Multi-axle at 13.7m with 9 litre engine
3. Volvo 9400 with 9-litre configuration
4. Volvo 9400 with 7 litre configuration
5. Volvo 9100
6. Volvo 7400XL City Bus
7. Volvo 7400 City Bus
8. Volvo 7400 CNG City Bus
9. Volvo 7400 Semi-Low Floor City Bus
10. Volvo 8400 Commuter City Bus

Launch of the new bus models 9100, 9400 and 7400 in India on Dec 29th, 2011. In the foreground Håkan Karlsson, Executive Vice President Business Areas (former President Volvo Bus Corporation) and Akash Passey, Managing Director and CEO, Volvo Buses in South Asia.

As in most densely populated cities of the world, the traffic conditions in India cause accidents including buses and other vehicles. Next to the environment I pay a lot of attention to the safety aspects. I am therefore particularly glad to see that the effects of collisions with cars and three wheelers have been brought down even further with the introduction of the new front under run protection (FUP).

EBSF Concept Bus

Volvo recently presented our contribution to the European Bus System of the Future, EBSF , which is a joint European project with about 50 partners.

Our contribution has the objective to shorten stop time at the bus stops by efficient boarding.

Wide doors and an open layout makes it easier for travelers to access to the bus. The layout of the seats includes a number of driver controlled foldable seats. In rush hours the 18 metre articulated EBSF bus can carry almost  as many passengers as a 24 metre biarticulated, while at other times the buss offers many more seats than the corresponding bus does today. It has thus been possible to combine capacity and comfort!

The EBSF concept bus

A learning from the meeting is that the new design will decrease the environmental impact by about 4% just by lowering the stop time at the bus stops.

The indirect effect of attracting more passengers deserves a separate chapter in the blog…

Swiss Hybrid Buses

Last week I got the opportunity to visit Zurich and I learned that more than 60% of the people make their daily travel with public transports. For being an urban area of about a million persons this must be a world record. I was glad to learn that more than 10% walk and bike. Facilitating walking and biking is often forgotten when public transports and cars are high on the political agenda.

There are now Volvo hybrid buses and fleets running in 13 municipalities in Switzerland.

Volvo hybrids in Switzerland

Swiss transport authorities have particularly high demands on environmental performance and I am of course glad that our 7700 Hybrid (and from next year 7900 Hybrid) has taken off like a rocket.

One of our demonstration hybrids was shown in Zurich. In the picture it has made a short stop close to Fraumünster. (The glass paintings in Fraumünster by Marc Chagall is one of my favourites and I often come back to discover new details, worth a journey in my travel guide).

Fraumünster

By coincidence I found a cute old-timer on the other side of the square, that I just have to share with you as well.

All need to improve

Recently I took part in a panel debate in Germany on what transports can do to reduce the contribution to global warming.
There is hope.

The technicians presented lists of new less energy consuming technologies to implement.

The architects proposed new city plans that would require less travel and transports.

The traffic planers presented new roads, bridges and tunnels.

For person transports, some make plans where the behaviour of people will change and others assume that the transports simply will increase.

Most of the greenhouse gas emissions globally originate from the use of fossil energy use, although farming, forestry and land use also make significant contributions.

It is clear that more than 80% of the energy used on the planet comes from oil (33%), coal (27%) and gas (21%). This energy is traded on an open global market and almost all energy use in society is interconnected. By saving any type of energy the emissions of fossil carbon dioxide is indirectly decreased. Therefore it is equally important to decrease the energy use as well as the emissions of green house gases.

The picture below is from the “Stern Report” and the transport sector to the right is a global picture made by the US department of energy based on data from EIA. The light duty vehicles both include cars and light duty trucks.

Statistics from the Stern report

It is important that all countries make the efforts required to turn the development. It is equally important that each sector takes control of their respective responsibilities without making it worse for others. Also within the transportation sector each mode of transportation will have to make contributions.

I don’t get upset easily. However, when I hear in a panel debate that efficient solutions such as high capacity Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems buses should not be utilised “because it would become too competitive versus trams”, then I get really upset. When politicians prevent improvement by obstructing the development in other areas than their personal pet choices, then I get upset.  If the trams are not competitive and have too low capacity, too high energy use, cause too many accidents and are too loud, it is something that can only be addressed by allowing other alternatives to compete, not by protecting the trams by obstructing the deployment of bus systems.

My point is that all modes of transportation need to improve. For development and evolution, open competition helps a lot. For person transports, the energy use and the emissions of greenhouse gases cause most of the environmental load. It is essential to decrease both. It is not positive to subsidise high speed trains for example, when the energy use per passenger kilometre is substantially higher than for the main alternative. For distances shorter than 400km the bus is mostly the main alternative and for longer distances in developed countries aeroplanes are preferred by the travellers. To secure that all transportation improve it is essential to compare the performance in an objective way.

Heaters and Air Conditioners

In many areas today the buses have air conditioners in the summer and compartment heating in the winter, which certainly ads to the comfort.

I often get questions about what the fuel consumption impact is of heaters and air conditioners.

As always it depends a lot on the user and under which conditions the bus is running.
If the air conditioner (AC) is used just a few months, mostly at noon, the impact is limited. However, in Hong Kong for example the power outtake increase in average by 30-50%  for the city double deckers on a yearly basis.

A couple of years ago I made a study on the fuel consumption of the heater on a bus-fleet in Sweden. The buses were using standard heaters from November to March, a period of five months. The heater was only used to give additional heat to the passenger compartments. i.e. engine heating in the morning was managed by an electrical ramp system.

Below I present some data that I have gathered from some different studies of larger fleets.

Yearly Average fuel consumption increase in a statistical analysis of large fleets:
AC Central Europe 6%
AC Israel 12%
Heater Finland 10%
Heater Sweden 6%

It essentially means that when the AC is running the fuel consumption is in average increased by about 20% for one bus.

The trick is to use the comfort equipment when required, but no more than that.

Electrifying!

When visiting Shanghai last week we got some hands-on experience of electric buses. Our Chinese joint venture, Sunwin, offers a series of different electric buses: super capacitor, battery and hybrid buses.

Electric buses, with less demand for infrastructure, already today offer advantages to trams and trolley buses for low speed city traffic.

Sunwin has delivered around 160 battery buses to Shanghai. Most of them use the battery exchange system, where the buses are equipped with batteries lasting for 2-6 hours’ operation, depending on duty cycle and utilisation of air conditioner. The battery exchange is one possible option for buses with long working hours and harsh duty cycles.

Figure: The Battery exchange station can swap batteries on eight buses simultaneously

Figure: Battery exchange is now a routine, with a constant flow of buses entering and leaving the station

Another option is to equip the buses with batteries for a full workday. More batteries are required and the load capacity of the bus will decrease a bit, but on the other hand the charging can be conducted during the night rest.

Figure: Bus “tanking” electricity 3-4 hours over night

Which solution is better?

Depending on the requirements, different solutions will be favourable. In the end it is a matter of balancing the passenger capacity versus the electric range. In general, very slow city traffic is favourable for today’s electric buses.  Typically less than 1 kWh/km is used for the slow city operation, without air conditioner. The daily range will be 150-250 km, depending on required capacity.

Figure:  Morning breaks in Century Park

When travelling, some exercise is welcome. But, what is Jörgen Sjöstedt doing at seven o’clock in the morning? As the morning breaks the people enter the Century Park for some exercise, Chinese gymnastics or just a walk.