Brisbane City Council’s bus fleet could go fully electric
Brisbane’s Lord Mayor has called for bus builders to come up with a plan for the city’s 1200-strong fleet to be zero emission, as he revealed which route will get the city’s first fully electric buses.
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BRISBANE’S bus fleet could one day be fully electric with no tailpipe carbon emissions after the council called for tenders to future-proof the city’s buses.
Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said the council’s current bus building contract would run out in 2022 and it would “welcome plans for zero-emission bus options”.
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He wanted future bidders to pitch long-term plans to transition the council’s bus fleet to cleaner power sources, like Paris, London and Amsterdam, which had already gone electric.
“It’s about environmental sustainability, about making sure we adapt to the changing climate and also keeping those running costs down as well, which is really important,” he said.
The value of the Brisbane City Council’s contract to build buses, which is held by Volgren, is commercial-in-confidence.
Meanwhile, the city’s first fully electric buses will be put on trial this year on the free City Loop service.
The tenders for the trial on the free City Loop service closed last November and the successful candidate will be announced mid-this year.
“We know this technology works, it is being used elsewhere,” Cr Schrinner said.
“What we want to determine is the best routes to put these buses on and the City Loop trial will give us operating information so that we know which parts of the city would be best suited for electric buses.”
He said the cost for electric buses would be higher upfront and would need to include charging infrastructure, but would have were lower running costs than diesel buses.
Cr Schrinner said the council had 1200 buses in its fleet and replaced about 60 buses a year but that did not mean it would necessarily take 20 years to transition to a fully electric fleet.
He said there had been years where the council had replaced 100 or 125 buses while another factor was the life of the buses, which under TransLink is 20 years.
If that lifespan was reduced, which would be up to the State Government, that could also change how long it took to electrify the fleet.
The council’s Brisbane Metro vehicles will be fully electric and built by Volgren and Hess.
University of Queensland Tritium E-Mobility Fellow Dr Jake Whitehead said it was an exciting announcement that was “a longtime coming”.
“We should be moving towards a fully electrified fleet that will not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also reduce transport costs for everyone that lives in the city,” he said.
“We’re already at a point where the total cost of ownership (of electric vehicles) is almost on parity with diesel and that’s only going to improve over the coming years.”
Dr Whitehead said the introduction of electric vehicles “open up a who range of new jobs”.
He said the city was home to the likes of Tritium whose electric vehicle fast-charging technology had been exported around the world.
“It’s certainly a great opportunity to support local businesses in deploying electric buses and electric vehicles more broadly,” he said.
Brisbane Airport Corporation executive general manager consumers Martin Ryan said the airport had run an electric fleet of12 buses for two years.
“The buses are incredibly quiet and are helping reduce 250 tonnes of carbon emissions each year, which equals 100 less cars on roads,” he said.
Labor Lord Mayoral candidate Patrick Condren said that having an electric fleet was “a good idea in this modern day and age”.
“I would also like to investigate the possibility of hydrogen, that’s the next tip for vehicles — hydrogen powered,” he said.
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