Clean buses, healthy cities: UITP launches new report on bus fleet renewal

18/06/2020

Global
Climate
Sustainability
Urban development
Urban mobility

The use of low carbon technologies in the urban transport sector is key to reducing greenhouse emissions and air pollution and to achieve sustainable and liveable cities. Even though the contribution of urban buses to local emissions is already very low, many bus fleets in Europe have non optimal emission standards, and policies on decarbonisation and clean technologies are driving both the market and cities towards cleaner bus fleets.

Therefore, in the coming years, many operators and cities will focus onreplacing older bus fleets in an accelerated pace to reach the targets on the transition to a decarbonised and climate neutral bus fleet.

To further advance sustainable urban mobility and the uptake of clean buses, UITP is working with various national and international Partners, like the World Bank, EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit). One of the recent initiatives is the Action towards Climate-friendly Transport (ACT) coalition, which was launched at the UN Climate Summit 2019.

Developed by the UITP Bus Committee, the Checklist naturally fits in UITP’s toolbox approach and UITP’s efforts on clean bus fleet renewal, including EU-projects such as ZeEUS and ASSURED and initiatives such as the Clean Bus Europe Platform.

The checklist is made by the sector, for the sector, with input coming from different stakeholders brought together by UITP, including DPP (Czech Republic), EMT Madrid (Spain), Semitan (France), Arriva (UK), and many others.

Now, building on those collaborations, UITP has launched the Bus Fleet Renewal Checklist: a new decision support tool for bus operators, municipalities, and PTAs in the process of bus fleet renewal.

The Bus Fleet Renewal Checklist is available on MyLibrary (Members only).

For a glimpse of the report, read the executive summary here

“The UITP Bus Fleet Renewal checklist aims to provide operators with a clear overview of the process and the relevant points to consider when renewing their fleet. This list and process are applicable to different contexts, from a “business-as-usual” bus replacement to a more challenging “technological jump” towards cleaner mobility. The Checklist ensures that no relevant data or system actor is missed. The Checklist helps also to identify and to plan the necessary steps that may or not fall under the operator’s responsibility. The step-by-step structure allows the operator to quickly go through the identified steps and, depending on the existing level of knowledge and experience, to focus directly on the relevant phases in its specific context, without losing the big picture.” (Christophe Martin, TEC & Vice-chairman of the UITP Bus Committee). “One of UITP’s goals in the field of knowledge generation is to develop tools and decision support instruments for our bus members. The Checklist is one of the most high powered productivity tool ever discovered. Checklists are really helpful ways to remind bus system actors how to manage complicated tasks. Not only are checklists a help, they are required for success.”
Arno Kerkhof
UITP Bus Transport Unit Leader