To share recent experiences and know-how and to give a comprehensive picture of the awareness-raising for the deployment of e-buses, STRIA South Transdanubian Regional Innovation Agency Nonprofit Ltd. organized an interregional online learning event “Awareness raising for the deployment of e-buses” on 31 March.
To welcome the participants to Pécs and Paks and to “travel” to the venue, the participants were circulated around the area using video tours. Video come also in handy with the interviews from Pécs, offering an understanding of the recent change. Several actors were telling their experiences and illuminating the transformation from the previous diesel-only fleet to the current situation, where 11 % of the fleet consists of e-buses. All the shown videos are available in the eBussed library (link).
Veronika Erős, the project leader of the Green Bus Program and one of the key speakers, represented the Green Bus Program of the Hungarian Government aiming at replacing the bus fleet, reducing emissions, noise and operation expenses, improving travel quality and increasing domestic bus manufacturing capabilities.
One of the event aims was to introduce good practices. As the first good practice, the Pécs case was presented by Zoltán Csúcs, CEO of Pécs Urban Development Nonprofit Plc. The company is owned by the Municipality of Pécs and was involved in the procurement of the e-buses. He highlighted that the new e-buses were put into operation in the varied terrains of Pécs and these particularly affect the vehicles’ transport performance. However, the topographic characteristics of the city make the buses’ energy management more effective: a vehicle in downward run brakes more, so it sends back energy to the power supply to reduce the overall power consumption. Furthermore, Pécs plans to procure additional 8 new e-buses soon.
The second good practice, the Paks case was introduced by Balázs Kiss, external expert of Paks Transport Ltd. At the beginning of the year, the company took over officially the local public transport service from Volánbusz Plc. After 2 months of the launch, Paks Transport Ltd. is satisfied with the experiences. Drivers are satisfied with the new engines and the buses that are easy to drive. Users are generally pleased with the change. As clock-face scheduling makes planning easier, the new network is more usable. For the future, Paks has plans to for example implement further charging points and establish community car-sharing services.
As a warm-up for the expert debate at the end, the participants were given the possibility to take part to in an interactive short online quiz. The questions raised were properly answered by the speakers and the moderator János Szász.
