Hybrids on the run

I have previously written about the benefits of the versatility of the Volvo 7700 Hybrid in particular about the superior performance in different types of city operation. But, what about rural bus operation? In the absence of stop and go traffic surely the savings will be marginal. As the hybrid now are rolling out from the factory and delivered to the operators in Europe a steady flow of reports also emerge.

The first hybrid bus from the pre series was delivered to the Swiss Post. It was clear already from the start that the Swiss Post wanted to assess the performance in rural operation (überland). The Swiss Post carefully selected a representative rout to generate useful information to assess the use of hybrid buses in their operation. An average speed of 30 km/h and a altitude difference of 260 m on the 14.6 km long rout is a challenge for any hybrid.

Three different reference buses are used. The fuel consumption of the reference buses were; 35.8, 39.9 and 40.6 litre per 100 kilometre. The Volvo 7700 Hybrid used 28.6 litre per 100 km for the same rout. The saving was hence between 20 and 29.4% in Swiss rural operation.

Read more in the Swiss Post press release.

 

Mean while, several more buses have been taken into service also in Switzerland. In this photo a new hybrid delivered to Aargau, Switzerland.

 

I have learned that also Sales Lentz in Luxembourg and Netbus in Trondheim, Norway, operate at average speeds around 30 km/h. It seems that the Volvo 7700 hybrid is about to escape the city and now conquer the rural operation as well.

 

But still, most importantly, the Volvo parallel hybrid design secures the reliability of the bus by safe guarding the diesel engine performance by an additional air compressor and generator in case of any disturbance of the high voltage system.

 

Double Decker Hybrid 10.69 miles per gallon

In a recent issue of Route One (Thursday the 21st of October), the UK magasine on buses, the Volvo hybrid Chassis B5LH with a classic UK double decker body was evaluated.
The four page detailed article reports on experiences and performance. The fuel economy during the test runs were 10.69 miles per gallon and the average fuel economy over six days operation was 7.8 miles per gallon. The full apreciation of the smooth driving performance and the positive comments on the drivers place laid out for professional drivers warmed my heart particularly.

The Volvo B5LH is equipped with a full hybrid system with versatile properties that meet fuel economy improvements beyond 50% in the city and more than 35% in rural operation. (The fuel consumption is lowered with up to 35%.)

US route to energy efficiency

Authorities around the world plan for and implement measures to controll the energy use of road transports. China, Japan, US and Eu have all announced that future legislation will include measures to regulate fuel consumption or green house gases. Recently a proposal from the US National Highway and Trafic Safety Administration and the Environemental Protection Agency was presented.
Read the Fact sheet here. 
The plan is to present a regulation by summer 2011.
 
As in most other parts of the world the buses are lumped together with Heavy Duty trucks this is reasonable since trucks and buses mostly use the same engines. But, the usefull load of a bus is represented by the number of passengers rather than the load in tonnes or cubic meters. For the bus passenger for alternative is mostly metro, car, train, tram, ferry or aeroplanes.
 
I get concerned when all means of transports are not treated equally. When road transports are regulated the effect on society can either be the straight forward expected decrease of the energy use but it is also possible that detailed requirements may for example lead to less reliable or more costly technologies that in turn lead to a change in travel behaviour.
 
The propoal describes a method to calculate the fuel consumption of different Heavy Duty vehicles. The objective is to reduce the energy use, green house gases and to simultaneously create jobs, lower the cost for transportation, benefit the consumers and business and improve the competitiveness of America.

Greetings to and from our hybrid buses

 

Special Greetings from Curitiba, Brazil

2010 will for most of the co-workers of Volvo Bus Corporation be remembered as the year when the hybrid buses took off, in mass production. No doubt the performance and sales have been a pleasant experience.

I therefore dedicate this blog to the hybrid workhorses out there in the world.

 

Göteborg, Sweden

 

London, England

 

Vancouver, Canada

 

Luxemburg

 

Bern, Switzerland

 

Leeds, England

 

Dortmund, Germany

 

Graz, Austria

 

Trondheim, Norway

 

Oslo, Norway

 

Québec City, Canada

 

Aarau, Switzerland

 

Randers, Denmark

 

Copenhagen, Denmark

 

Curitiba, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

 

Mexico City, Cancun, Mexico

Modernizing Public Transportation

The World Resource Institute and the associated organisation EMBARQ have summarized the learning’s from major bus projects in Latin America and Asia in a recent report titled “Modernizing Public Transports”

Read more about the report here

 

The report mainly focus on high capacity bus routs with 1 780 to 43 000 passengers per direction and hour. Thirteen cities have contributed to the report (Curitiba, Quito, Boogota, São Paolo, León, Jakarta, Mexico City, Beijing, Pereira, Guayaquil, Santiago, Guadalajara, and Ahmedabad.

There are both more and less successful examples. A very good summary is given in the “lessons learned” section. The general conclusion is that most of the projects have been successful by improving the travel conditions for the users and raised the quality and performance of the public transports.

The recommendations in brief are divided in:

Planning Phase: Use a team that address combined, transports, financial, legal, institutional and environmental concerns.

Decision-Making Process: Secure approval from high level decision makers early in the process.

Design Phase: Chose the adequate geographical area and be careful to consistently apply all the required elements of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).

Implementation Phase: Implement user education programmes and involve the community in participation and engagement programmes.

Operational Phase: Match the service level frequency, feeder lines, etc. to the demand, that may change a lot (mostly rapid growth) during the initial operation.

Structural Issues: Develop a clear vision and stay consistent in the implementation. Secure financing to fully develop the new bus system.

I conclude that the more consistent you are, the more successful the bus transports will become. To pick and implement some elements of BRT will only exceptionally bring progress.

World Cup buses for Rio

The test rides with the Volvo 7700 Hybrid bus was appreciated part the buss was full.

Last week I spent some days visiting the Fertrans conference and exhibition in Rio de Janeiro and I learned a lot. Rio is a city with a broad experience of different person transports: cars, motorcycles, buses, tram, metro, ferries, cable cars and bikes.

The World Cup in football will be hosted by Brazil in 2014. Rio and several other cities in are taking the opportunity to reorganise the city transports. In Rio most person transports are conducted by bus. When walking is excluded 74% of the journeys are by bus or light bus, according to one of the speakers.

There are more than 6 million inhabitants and the metropolitan area have close to 15 million inhabitants. The old city centre originate from 1763, when Rio began as an era as capital city. The old (and nice although crowded with cars) city centre, the geography with an irregular coast line and lots of mountains and hills make the planning of the transports and roads a challenge. The number of cars have been increasing by 5.2% per year, over the last five years. The road infrastructure is growing less rapidly and in Rio further load of cars will be hard to absorb and car infrastructure will hence not solve the congestion issue.

Therefore the master plan is to increase the capacity of the most environmentally friendly public transport (buses). Buss Rapid Transit (BRT) lines, one ticketing system and feeder lines are the main elements that will be realised. When ready, the capacity of the six new BRT routs will range from 120　000 to incredible 300　000 passengers per day. Last week a public transport adviser in Stockholm told me that buses are not suitable for transporting more than 30　000 persons per day. He and Europeans in general really needs to update them selves on what modern high capacity buses are all about.

Volvo 7700 Hybrid, offers clean and silent journeys. The modern design and open spaces gives the riders more room for privacy. Increasing amounts of modern hybrid buses will increase the attractiveness for the passengers and with the right marketing and the new connected and rapid bus routs it will attract also office people that prioritise to shorten the time.

Inside the buses in Brazil, there is a place for a ticket-collector. Here a young Brazilian boy find his place for the test ride.

The most recent addition to the BRT offers was made by Neobus. The modern front and room for bikes in the rear makes make’s an attractive impression. The high floor and air suspension of the Volvo B12MA chassis gives outstanding comfort. 

 

I joined some of the seminars. On the Friday I presented how the hybrid technology can be used to raise the profile of public transports in Latin America. My colleague Fabio Lorencon just finished three weeks of tests with the 7700 Hybrid in Curitiba. The outcome was more than 35% savings, in relation to Volvo B7RLE. This is somewhat a surprice also for me since B7RLE is a low entry bus with fewer losses in the drive train than low floor buses.

 

Even if I truly enjoy the weeks at home more than the business travel, jogging along the beaches, Copacabana, Ipanera and Leblon is nice. Taking a bath in the rolling waves after jogging and drinking a fresh coconut before leaving for the airport ads to the positive memories from Chile and Brazil.

 

 

Increasing congestion in Santiago de Chile

Chile is a blooming economy with constant growth since 1984. Only very few countries such as China and India can give Chile a fair competition in terms of economical growth. With increasing wealth, more travel follows. The cars in Chile are quite new and statistics shows a rapid increase in the numbers of cars.

 

Sunday afternoon traffic in Santiago, some of the articulated Volvo buses from 2005.

I arrived to Chile, together with my colleague Jörgen Sjöstedt, product manager for the Americas, on Sunday afternoon. The rain was pouring down; it was freezing cold and windy.

In 2005 an programme for organising public transports was realised and more than 1100 new Volvo buses were brought into service. An immediate effect was seen in the air quality and a decrease of city smog resulted.

However, increasing congestion problems mainly caused by increasing number of cars (this is my private analysis) indirectly affects all traffic that now have a very low average speed. It took us 1 hour to go by car from the city centre 4 km to the hotel! And, the smog has now started to increased again.

University students at PUC prefer taking the car, note the beautiful scenery and early morning raising smog in the background.

Unfortunately, the general mindset, learned from the people I came to speak with, is that you use the car if you can afford it. The coming generation of Santiago citizens are frequent car users. At the University in Santiago (PUC) there were more cars than I ever seen at a University before. In fact, a substantial part of the surface was covered by parking lots. 

In the city centre, several Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lines are crossing. In the very middle of the centre the traffic flows relatively smooth. At the “Plaza de la Ciudadania” the characteristic huge flag (big as a tennis court, I was told) was making waves in the wind. The high capacity trunk lines pass and provided a steady flow of large numbers of people at the avenue Libertador Bernardo O’Higgins under the flag.

One of the buildings with new exciting architecture covered with real grass. I would not like to be the one using the lawn mover here!

The prospering spirit of the people in Santiago made the visit very pleasant. A new business district is growing some 4 km from the city centre. Recently a major earthquake shook the city but the building has started again and new exciting architecture literarily grow from the ground.