Good practice:

Conditional delivery of e-buses, including a practical test phase

E-bus technology is still relatively new and not yet mature. As a result, first e-buses procured are often subject to ongoing development processes. Technical errors and defects can reduce the availability of e-buses and pose additional challenges to transport operators.
In order to assure a high quality and availability of procured e-buses, transport operator VHH implemented a test phase in the procurement procedure. All e-buses must accomplish a total distance of 2.000 km without any errors to complete the procurement process. It takes approx. 1 to 2 weeks (without error) for a bus to drive 2.000 km. Every error or defect of every e-bus within this test phase is recorded in a List of Open Points (LOP) and must be resolved by the manufacturer. Once an error occurs, the distance counter is reset to 0 km again. Due to iterations and testing after errors, the test phase can be as long as needed to identify and resolve errors, or the PTO decides to cancel procurement. One or more project engineers or technicians should be assigned to supervise the process and to act as link between the PTO and the manufacturer. They take care of a detailed documentation of technical issues and therefore need access to data monitoring systems of the e-buses.
The main stakeholders and beneficiaries are the PTOs and the manufacturers of e-buses. They both benefit from an intense testing-phase, in which the majority of eventual faults will be identified and solved.

Drivers are required, VHH runs the tests within their regular operations.
The time of each testing phase for each bus depends on the problems encountered and the reaction time of the manufacturers. Therefore, it is difficult to specify the amount of time invested in this practice.

A survey among member of the Initiative Elektrobus has been conducted to investigate, whether other PTOs have established similar processes or approve of the practice. 50% of respondents stated using either a distance or time based proof of reliability in their procurements.
Significant issues were identified due to the test phase. This even led to the dismissal of a delivery, because the test phase could not be concluded to satisfaction in an acceptable timeframe (over a year).

Negotiating the conditional delivery with manufacturers might be a challenge. The procurement will take more time and requires drivers as well as solid communication channels with the manufacturer.

This practice can easily be adopted by other PTOs in other regions. Since the procurement contracts and processes of different PTOs can be different, the exact implementation of the practice allows for variation from case to case.