The Hamburg Climate Plan (HCP) determines the regional climate policy, concluded by the regional government (“Senate”) in Dec 2015. It is the binding document for all regional authorities to act in order to achieve the climate goals for the whole region. Following European and national premises the Climate plan provides the strategic goals (i.e. « Climate Smart City »), long term perspectives and a detailed Action Plan 2020/2030. Hamburg is a city with massive public transport, a fleet which is now in a continuous electrification process.

The HCP and the Action plan are clearly describing aims, steps, measures and evaluations until 2020/2030. The reason of using this policy instrument in the project is that Hamburg expects from the partners experience in the practical implementation especially of e-mobility in the public transport sector in order to improve the political demands, targets and achievements.

As a city Hamburg is the center of a Metropolitan area. Therefoe, best practice solutions achieved already will be useful for a transfer into other regions and vice versa.

The ’Kansen voor West II’ policy instrument facilitates four goals: (1) strengthening research, technological development and innovation; (2) supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy in all sectors; (3) stimulating employment and supporting labour mobility; and (4) stimulating social inclusion and fighting poverty. With participating in the E-buses project the province aims to contribute to improve the ERDF policy instrument to further support the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Within Europe, the Western Netherlands lags significantly behind in terms of renewable energy generation and distribution. In view of the high population density and equally high concentration of economic activity in the region, the challenge of reducing CO2 emissions in the coming years is of particular importance to the region.

For that reason 20% of the available ERDF budget in the region will be invested as an accelerator in concepts and projects of energy transition that will generate growth and will lead to repetition and upscaling. Several mobility concepts are tested like the project Clean & future proof mobility concepts, the project Plug-in hybride water taxi and the project Smart Solar Charging Regio Utrecht. More examples are needed to improve the ERDF policy instrument and to enlarge its impact. Therefore the province is in constant search for new innovations, new concepts and joint efforts from all European regions and from different sectors.

Priority Axis 7’s main objectives are to reduce carbon and GHG emissions emanating from the Transport Sector. In this regard, two main initiatives shall be financially supported by this Priority Axis. These are investments towards the establishment of the required infrastructure to facilitate modal shift from cabon dependent modes of transportation towards sustainable, low-carbon transport systems. Secondly, investments to render public transport as a more viable and attractive alternative to private transport. Besides this, through this Priority Axis, the Maltese Government shall support measures designated in bolstering renewable energy production in the transport sector. Under the Europe 2020 Strategy, Malta is committed to increase its share of renewable energy in the transport sector by 10%.

To better reach the above commitments, this policy instrument requires further refinement to reflect the realities and difficulties associated with the large scale introduction of fully powered electric collective public transport vehicles such as buses. In particular, this policy instrument must better reflect the potential state aid implications resulting the introduction of fully electric buses within public transport systems that are operated by the private sector.

The OP includes the main transport infrastructure investments of Hungary. It focuses on improving public transport services, regional accessibility, development of highways and railways to provide direct links to the Trans-European transport network for more cities. ITDOP focuses on four main priorities: 1, Improve international road accessibility; 2, Improve international railway accessibility; 3, Developing sustainable urban and suburban transport; 4, Improving access to the TEN-T road network. The current project will be able to support the achievement of the 3rd priority of the OP, which is strongly linked to the exploitation of alternative fuel based transport possibilities, such as e-buses, trolleys, trams, etc. Among its expected impacts, the programme intends to ensure that public transport becomes a more attractive travel alternative with over 132 km metro, tram and local train lines to be built or upgraded. Although there’s a possibility for some cities to benefit from urban transport investments and light train developments, investments mainly affect Budapest and the surrounding area and neglects the support of e-buses. The topic of the E-bussED project perfectly fits to the ITDOP programme’s concept, therefore the OP has to be improved in a way that calls should directly support the switch of other settlements to electric public transport, contributing to the climate protection goals of Hungary and the EU.

Tuscany ROP includes 7 Axes with 3 main objectives including "increased competitiveness in relation to environmental sustainability". Those ROP Axes focus on specific issues of the Regional Development Plan (PSR) and other policy instruments (e.g. Regional Transport Plan and Mobility). The most relevant Axis for E-bussED is Axis 4 " “Support the transition to a low carbon economy in all sectors”", especially Investment priority (SO4.e) "Promoting low-carbon strategies for all types of territories, in particular for urban areas, including the promotion of sustainable multi-modal urban mobility and relevant adaptation and mitigation measures".

Reason for improvement is the necessity of accessing state-of-the-art applications of electrically-powered public transport vehicles which can be effectively introduced in replacement of diesel-engine ones. Technical and infrastructure requirements, different barriers and drivers, procurement and tendering to match local conditions, possible constraints and opportunities in the region will need to be reviewed and possibly reflected in the selection procedures for implementing - within Specific Objective RA 4.6 “Increase of sustainable mobility in urban areas” - the following Action 4.6.2 “Renewal of rolling stock - Support to sustainable urban mobility interventions: renewal of local public transport vehicles in urban areas”.