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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - STYLUS (Sustainable urban mobiliTY: ELectric double decker bUS)

Teaser

Summary

Climate change and air quality are amongst the issues where the European Commission places more emphasis. The transport sector is one of the most pollutants, contributing to 23% of greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted globally. To reduce this amount, the EU is stablishing policies to promote the use of efficient and non-polluting vehicles in European cities (i.e. Directive 2009/33 / EC).

To overcome this situation, increasingly more solutions are being developed to convert diesel driven vehicles to electricity driven ones. However, the market still has a long way to grow to be 0 % pollutant. In the automotive sector, almost all kind of vehicles have already an electric solution to substitute the current polluting ones; nevertheless, there is still no alternative developed to substitute current diesel driven city tour buses. Nowadays, Double Decker city tour buses are present in almost all large cities in the world, transporting daily millions of people. Despite being more ecological than private cars, driving more people in less space, also pollute and need to be developed to reduce worldâ€™s pollution.

CARROCERÃAS AYATS (hereinafter AYATS) is an SME bus company with more than 100 years of experience, internationally renowned for the construction of personalised Double Decker Buses (DDBs). AYATS has identified this business opportunity and aims through the STYLUS project to develop the first open-top electric Double Decker tourist Bus (hereinafter eDDB).

The general objective of the project is to develop the first urban double decker bus 100% electric for tourist use in order to contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions, and other gases of great relevance in urban environments (NOx, SOx, particles, non-metallic hydrocarbons, etc.) that affect air quality in cities.

For the successful completion of the project, specific objectives are:

- Develop an innovative urban electric double decker bus (eDDB) with a capacity of 98 people (96 seated, PMR and driver) to accelerate the introduction of electric vehicles in the tourism sector
- Improve the performance of the bus through an increase of the autonomy of 10 to 20% of energy management systems
- Lighten body and chassis to achieve an eDDB of only 22 tons.
- Contribute to improve air quality in the urban environment with a reduction of CO2 emissions, and other gases (NOx, SOx, particles, non-metallic hydrocarbons, etc.).
- Reduce the acoustic emissions of urban traffic.
- Allow the company to get into the niche of electric vehicles by providing the first completely electric double-decker bus.
- Positioning AYATS in the national and international market with an increase of 10% of its exports offering an innovative electric tourist bus.

Work performed

A first eDDB prototype has been already developed thanks to a Spanish funded project, which led to aim to develop a second prototype through European funding, to further develop and optimise the technologies, thus be able to bring the technology to the market maximising impact.

From TRL 1 to 5, innovative solutions were studied and developed to maximize batteries autonomy and the energy management. These technologies & methodologies for batteries were tested in the lab and in smaller vehicles showing a potential for improving the performance of EVs. Having tested them, AYATS moved to the improvement of these technologies and the development of this first prototype under a project funded at a national level by CDTI (IDl-20150277), which allowed to demonstrate the concept of the project and bring the technology to a TRL 6-7.

The prototype has currently been validated and satisfies all assumptions and requirements. Now, AYATS has developed a feasibility plan to analyse, among others, the market positioning of the project, sales to be expected, technical capability. Through phase 2, AYATS, together with its partners and other potential stakeholders, expect to further develop this prototype in SME Instrument Phase 2, to make eDDBs a more mature product ready to phase market commercialisation.

Final results

AYATS will be the first electric open-roof Double Decker bus in the world. It is expected to sell more than 100 buses per year by 2025 (the increase of numbers in line with the need of cities, the development of the bus and the dissemination activities). Therefore, from 2024 on, the expected sales will be minimum 100 buses per year, and growing, covering quickly the expected big demand of this buses.

Currently, in all large cities in the world, and other not so big as well, have open-roof double decker buses to show the city to tourists. These buses run the cities daily, transporting hundreds of passengers, and emitting Green House Gas and noise emissions that pollute cities air.

The new solution will represent a big impact to all cities, given that it will mean moving to a zero emissions vehicle, that will need less energy and will be able to perform the same journeys every day. By 2025, according to the sales expected, there will be around 400 eDDB running in different cities. Each bus develops a daily tour of 130-140 km and emits (diesel Euro V) an average of 1,295 g of CO2 per km. Multiplying those numbers, the impact of this innovation can mean a reduction of 66.18 tonnes of CO2 emitted in every city per year, and about 6,617 tonnes of CO2 per year globally by 2025. Besides, there will also no be noise missions, so the streets are more transitable by public.