Electric BRT in Action: eBRT2030 Demos Lead the Way!
The eBRT2030 project is turning years of research into public transport reality. Of the seven demonstration sites planned across the project, four have hosted their demo launch events: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Rimini and Prague. Athens will follow in November, launching alongside the project’s General Assembly in the city, with the remaining two sites, Bogota and Nantes, going live at a later stage.
eBRT2030 is a Horizon Europe flagship project bringing together fifty-one organisations to develop and test the next generation of fully electric Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems, with UITP proudly acting as coordinator of this project. Each of the project’s demo sites tackles a different set of operational challenges, giving cities a practical, transferable model for electrifying high-capacity bus networks.
Amsterdam: smart charging for one of Europe’s busiest BRT corridors
The Amsterdam demo launch event took place in March 2026, alongside the seventh meeting of the Future eBRT Cities User Group, bringing together regional authorities, transport operators and technology providers to discuss the demo’s strategic importance and the lessons emerging from electrifying a major BRT corridor.
The demo centres on BRT line 300, which connects Amsterdam, Haarlem and Schiphol Airport with around 340 daily trips and is regarded as a leading example of how BRT can combine speed, reliability and high capacity.
To address grid constraints at the depot, it introduces a hybrid charging setup combining a limited grid connection with a 1 MWh stationary battery buffer, paired with intelligent load management technology that dynamically distributes power between charging buses in real time.
Eduardo Gonzalez, Chair of the eBRT2030 User Group and Technical Manager at DBUS, commented on the success of Amsterdam emphasising that “this demo shows that zero emission BRT can deliver both sustainability and high performance for Europe’s busiest corridors.”
Following the launch, Erica Simpson, Transition Manager at Transdev Nederland, the operator running line 300, shared some of the operational lessons emerging from the demo: a different approach to planning once energy management becomes central, a strong reliance on suppliers for vehicles and charging infrastructure, the importance of data integration across systems, and the need to secure sufficient grid capacity for both current operations and future growth.
Barcelona: four innovations, one system, on the H12 corridor
The Barcelona demo went live most recently, in July of this year, with an official launch event hosted at the Sala Mediàtica of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). Led by Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB), the event celebrated years of European research becoming reality on one of the city’s most active bus corridors.
The demo runs on the H12, one of the city’s busiest and most demanding bus routes, chosen as a testing ground precisely because of its high passenger volumes and complex urban environment.
Four elements work together on the line: smart depot charging that reduces power peaks; dynamic traffic signal priority at 17 intersections, letting buses communicate in real time with TMB’s and the city’s control centres; a predictive model that draws on passenger data to project demand days ahead; and upgraded passenger information and video surveillance systems.
Ahead of the launch, Josep Mension Camps, director of Bus Central Services at TMB, in an interview published on the eBRT2030 project page, described the H12 as a continuous real time adjustment process shaped by Barcelona’s dense urban environment, and explained how predictive maintenance now helps manage battery degradation under the city’s heat, rotating vehicles based on their condition and adapting charging strategies to reduce wear.
The clearest lesson for other Mediterranean cities, he said, is that electrification alone is not enough: stability depends on integrating vehicle technology with operations and traffic management as a single system, and the solutions developed on the H12 are designed as building blocks TMB can extend to other corridors.
Prague: trolleybuses return after more than fifty years
Prague’s demo runs on line 119, connecting Veleslavín Railway Station to Václav Havel Airport Prague. Operated by Prague Public Transit Company (DPP), it entered service in March of 2024, reintroducing trolleybus technology to the city after five decades.
It uses large capacity battery trolleybuses from Škoda-Solaris, combining overhead power on wired sections with battery operation elsewhere, and increases airport transport capacity by around 30 percent on the same timetable while cutting CO2 emissions by roughly 1,300 tonnes a year.
In a later interview, Martin Košek, Deputy Bus Operation Manager at DPP, explained the thinking behind the approach. DPP set out clear goals for line 119: more passenger capacity, short connection intervals, no increase in vehicle numbers given limited depot parking, and shared power infrastructure with the tram network.
Diesel options were tested first but did not perform well, and DPP settled on a modern trolleybus fitted with a traction battery and an In Motion Charging (IMC) system, which also delivered the benefit of local emission free operation.
Moreover, dedicated lanes and traffic light priority keep delays from car traffic to a minimum, while a robust power and charging network means vehicles never need to stop and park to charge.
Košek explained that trolleybus technology was chosen partly because it avoids carrying large batteries on vehicles travelling more than 71,000 km a year each, and partly because a densely built city like Prague does not have the spare grid capacity to fast charge a large battery fleet overnight; a trolleybus instead draws power continuously through the day, much of it from renewable sources.
Rimini: digital intelligence on the Metromare
Rimini hosted its demo launch event in May of 2025. Its demo runs on the Metromare, the in motion charging trolleybus line linking Rimini and Riccione in just over 20 minutes, with Start Romagna leading the work alongside the University of Bologna’s Cesena Campus, Enel X and RINA-C.
The focus here is the digital layer around the vehicles: active safety cameras that alert the operations centre rather than simply record, real time passenger counting on board and at stops so services can be reshaped to actual demand, and predictive maintenance drawing on sensor data sent over LTE/5G and WiFi. A new charging station and a disaster recovery system keep operations running during major incidents.
Eleonora Mauri of Start Romagna, in an interview published on the eBRT2030 project page prior to the demo launch, described the core shift as moving surveillance from passive to active and scheduling maintenance from live vehicle and battery data rather than fixed intervals, with cybersecurity and business continuity treated as part of the same package. Predictive maintenance alone is expected to cut total cost of ownership by 5 percent and extend battery life by 10 percent.
The site has also drawn attention at European level. During the Ecomondo exhibition in Rimini in November 2025, CINEA Director Paloma Aba Garrote visited the Metromare, guided by Stefano Sirri, Head of Maintenance at Start Romagna, through the infrastructure and the operations centre before riding the service herself.
She described it as a silent, fast and safe service and pointed to its contribution to making public transport more efficient and attractive for residents and visitors alike.
What’s next
With the project now in its final year, attention turns to Athens, where the demo launch will take place in November alongside the General Assembly. Bogota and Nantes are the last two to come.
Explore the map below to see all seven eBRT2030 demo sites, alongside the project’s small-scale international demos and twinning cities. More information is available at ebrt2030.eu