Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ELIPTIC (Electrification of public transport in cities)

Teaser

Electrification of public transport is an overarching aim of the Horizon 2020 CIVITAS-ELIPTIC project: developing new use concepts and business cases for the use of existing electric public transport systems - e.g. light rail, metro, tram and trolleybus – as a charging...

Summary

Electrification of public transport is an overarching aim of the Horizon 2020 CIVITAS-ELIPTIC project: developing new use concepts and business cases for the use of existing electric public transport systems - e.g. light rail, metro, tram and trolleybus – as a charging infrastructure in a multimodal mobility context. Existing electric public transport infrastructure can be considered as a smart grid itself and as an enabler for further sustainable and innovative mobility services as alternative to car ownership.

Electrification of public transport can achieve quick and strong impact to mitigate the urgent air quality and noise problems, to contribute efficiently to reduce CO2 emission. Additionally, attractive public transport is a backbone of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs). ELIPTIC is also looking into combined multimodal and shared electro mobility services. Based on this approach, ELIPTIC partners created a simple and clear campaign with the message “factor 100”, counting the much longer daily operational time of urban buses to clarify that it needs a 100 cars being electrified to achieve impacts of the electrification of a single 18-m bus – but still there not anything like an appropriate funding mechanism as for cars. “Factor 100” is part of ELIPTIC’s communication strategy.

With a strong focus on end users, ELIPTIC analyses 21 use cases within 3 thematic pillars:
• Safe integration of ebuses into existing electric PT infrastructure
• upgrading electric public transport systems (efficiency)
• Multi-purpose use of electric public transport infrastructure

ELIPTIC supports uptake and exploitation of results and will develop guidelines and tools for implementation. ELIPTIC will develop an ‘option generator and decision-making support tools and policy recommendations. Partners and other cities benefit from ELIPTIC\'s stakeholder dialogue, twinning and the User Forum.
ELIPTIC addresses the challenge of “transforming the use of conventionally fuelled vehicles in urban areas” by focusing on increasing the capacity of electric public transport, reducing the need for individual travel in urban areas and by expanding electric inter- and multimodal options (e.g. linking e-cars charging to tram infrastructure).

Work performed

ELIPTIC partner developed a dedicated methodology to assess the main technical, social, environmental and economic impacts of the ELIPTIC use cases. The evaluation plan integrates two different assessment procedures: a baseline versus “during” scenarios (also called NO-ELIPTIC vs ELIPTIC scenarios).Therefore, ELIPTIC use case leaders selected in a bottom-up approach their use case specific key performance indicators (KPIs) and a KPI matrix was developed as an array of all the KPIs selected by all ELIPTIC use cases.

A first series of 33 planned on-site workshops (3 workshops planned for each use case site during the project’s runtime) was conducted to define the scope of use cases and to elaborate the business case scenario of each respective use case. Initial results were discussed during the 2nd series of workshops with the use case partners, which was helpful to adjust the input parameters in order to create useful simulation results for the further development of business cases.

Furthermore, the ELIPTIC\'s use case partners support a group of 11 “twin cities” in the further advancement of their electric mobility concepts through extensive exchange. In addition, a User Forum was organised including 23 public transport authorities or companies for knowledge exchange on electrification of public transport projects across Europe.

With regard to dissemination work, ELIPTIC project presented its approach and initial results at 69 conferences, exhibitions, workshops and other dissemination events during the first reporting period. Some of the highlights were the TRA2016, Polis Annual Conference 2016, the CIVITAS Forum 2016, a dedicated ELIPTIC session during the 5th International E-Bus Conference in June 2016 in Berlin and the events hosted directly by Commissioner Bulc (Smart City January 2016) on the procurement of e-buses (October 2016). Finally, ELIPTIC organised the first thematic workshop with the title “UK e-Bus Summit” on the subject of ELIPTIC’S Pillar A “Safe integration of E-buses into existing electric PT infrastructure” in London (November 2016).

To liaise with thematically related European projects to share knowledge and insights, the ELIPTIC coordinator participated in the exchange workshops with the parallel H2020 MG CIVITAS projects at the CIVITAS fora in Ljubljana (2015) and Gdynia (2016). There is a continuous exchange with the thematically closely related projects ZeEUS and FREVUE.

Final results

The studies from Warsaw and Leipzig focused on the connection to the tram system and related legal, technological and organizational issues. The use case partner TfL analysed the potential of using power from the London Underground (LU) network to charge electric vehicles with no adverse effects on underground train operations, and prepared a demonstration for showing that power from the LU grid can support regular charging of electric vehicles.

The partner TMB analysed the performance data of the ongoing ZeEUS project demonstration in Barcelona and used the valuable data for preparing a charging concept using the metro energy at the depot. Brussels explored three different options for the introduction of an electric bus (neighbourhood bus, feeder bus & trunk line) and how to make best use of the existing tram infrastructure have been analysed in a first step.

Barcelona and Bremen are testing and analysing 18m electric battery buses of different concepts. The partners STOAG, LVB and Gdynia work on concepts for using sub-stations of PT systems (tram and trolleybus) for charging electric buses from a technical, operational and legal perspective. These concepts will contribute to making sub-stations more “smart” by realizing vehicle to grid communication to increase the energy efficiency. Also, ELIPTIC partners Bremen, London, Barcelona, Leipzig, Oberhausen and Szeged work on concepts to use the existing infrastructure of their metro, tram or trolleybus systems for charging of other electric vehicle types, i.e. e-cars/-vans/-bikes.

The step-wise simulation approach process taken in ELIPTIC to identify optimal energy storage design and charging systems for electric buses provides valuable data for the design of batteries, energy storage and their charging systems. The results of simulations are all reflected and validated by performance data of running demonstrations organized by ELIPTIC use case partners for all charging concepts, i.e. opportunity charging, overnight charging and in-motion charging for 12m and 18m electric buses, and for different PT systems being used as a backbone for charging concepts, i.e. metro, tram and trolleybuses.

In order to analyse smart energy management concepts to upgrade existing (electric) public transport infrastructure, BSAG, STIB and Gdynia research the potential of different technologies – substations equipped with flywheel, supercaps or designed as reversible substations - in order to optimize the use of braking energy within their tram or trolleybus systems. Gdynia’s bilateral power supply system for the trolleybus network is a “Europe’s first” innovation.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.eliptic-project.eu/.