Electric Bus Operations and Safety

Claudius Jehle is founder and CEO of volytica diagnostics GmbH, a company focusing on easy, safe and independent battery quality and health assessment. Claudius studied Mechanical Engineering and System Identification in TU Munich and TU Delft until 2012, and was then leading the research group Energy Storage Diagnostics and Telematics at the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI, Dresden, from 2013 until 2019.

Besides his role as CEO, Claudius is giving lectures on Battery Basics and Battery Degradation, writing knowledge base articles and is giving speeches and presentation on the global topic of batteries, the involved value chains and the potentials around independent battery diagnostics.

Having worked with zero and low emission buses for the last 15 years, David has gained vast knowledge and knowhow in the operation and maintenance side of bus operations.  Since the start of 2024, David is working as an independent consultant to assist and further develop the operation of zero emission heavy duty vehicles. 

The start of David’s zero emission experience started in 2009 when he worked for Tower Transit, a London bus operator.  He oversaw all aspects of the London hydrogen fuel cell buses that were part of the Clean Hydrogen in European Cities (CHiC) and Environmentally Friendly, Efficient Electric Motion (3Emotion) projects. From the start of the projects, David managed the introduction of the buses including setting up of the associated fuelling station and workshop, plus the daily operation incorporating zero emission buses as part of the overall bus fleet. 

Following his time at Tower Transit, David joined Ballard Power Systems Europe as Market Development Manager continuing to develop and promote the use of fuel cell electric buses. 

Alongside his belief in hydrogen vehicles, David is also a leading authority on other low and zero emission technologies and their operation. 

Prior to his involvement on zero emission vehicles, David worked in the manufacturing industry on new product introduction, aftersales support and quality. 

David is a European and Chartered Engineer (EUR ING and CEng), qualified to master’s degree level in both Hydrogen Safety Engineering and Electronics. 

Mohamed Abou El Enein, MSc., studied mechanical engineering with a focus on digitalized product development and drive technology at the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien. Joined “Wiener Linien”, the operator of the largest regional transport network in Austria, in 2019, working in the main department for Vehicle Technology in various innovation & digitization projects. Currently holding the position as a Project Manager for Hydrogen & E-mobility in the department for Motor Vehicles to investigate into battery-electric powertrains and hydrogen powertrains for the decarbonization strategy of Wiener Linien’s bus fleet.

Tanguy Bouton has over 15 years of experience in Public Transport and Decarbonation. He started his journey in 2010 at PVI working on a 12m electric bus prototype.

He then worked at RATP Dev as scheduler and network designer to build the Riyad Bus network.

In 2016 he started working for Transdev France as Bus & Coach Energy Transition Manager to later work for Transdev Group as Energy Transformation Energy Manager and finally Group Fleet Director to create the Zero Emission Team, including R&D, training, bidding and supporting operations for 13 countries.

As of 2023 Tanguy moved to South of France as fleet and maintenance manager and finally came back to the industry world, working with REV Bus&Truck to speed up energy transition through retrofitting current thermal Busses and Coaches in Electric vehicles in France and Europe.

Rachel has a BA (Hons) in Geography from University of Oxford and holds the inaugural Masters in Carbon Management from University of Edinburgh Business School. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.

Since graduating from Oxford, Rachel worked as a consultant beginning her career as a transport planner with WSP then worked for a start-up advising companies in the transport sector on how to reduce their carbon emissions. She then set up her own firm (Surbon Consulting) in the UK supporting transport operators such as Keolis, Go-Ahead, Serco and MTR on  business development and contract mobilisation  covering contract management, sustainability and customer experience. She has worked across all modes of transport: rail, metro, bus, ferry and cycle hire and more recently electric scooters. She set up a UAE branch of Surbon Consulting in 2017 and has delivered work in UAE, Qatar and Saudi.

She has been a member of UITP since 2015 and has found the conferencing and training courses offered by UITP extremely valuable. She has been an UITP trainer delivering training to TGA (Saudi), RTA (Dubai) and LTA (Singapore).

Ingénieur Civil diplômé en 2001 (Université Libre de Bruxelles), Benjamin Roelands a travaillé chez différents constructeurs actifs dans le secteur des transports : Valéo (automobile), Sonaca (aéronautique), Alstom (ferroviaire).

Il rejoint la Société des Transports Intercommunaux de Bruxelles en 2011. En 2014, il participe en collaboration avec la Vrije Universiteit Brussel au projet Eliptic financé par l’UE qui a permis de poser les premières bases d’une utilisation de bus à batteries à Bruxelles. En 2016, il lance le programme d’électrification de la flotte de bus qui se traduit par l’exploitation des premiers bus électriques à Bruxelles.

Fort de l’expérience acquise, la STIB se prépare aujourd’hui à poursuivre le programme d’électrification de la flotte de bus.

Arnd Bätzner provides consulting and government advisory on the alignment of multi-modal transit systems with the built environment and strategic land use planning. Focus areas include the integration of shared, demand-responsive transport with high-capacity modes, the role of data in autonomous driving, and bus electrification.

Arnd did part of his Ph.D. research on leveraging walkability in Hong Kong, Singapore and Jakarta. He chairs the Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport’s strategic advisory board and is a previous chair of the UITP Trolleybus Committee.