A city with half a million inhabitants would save about €10.5 million per year if its buses ran on electricity instead of diesel, according to analysis conducted the Volvo Group and audit and advisory firm KPMG. The analysis has taken into consideration such factors as noise, travel time, emissions, energy use, taxes and the use of natural resources.
The analysis was based on a city with about half a million inhabitants and 400 buses. If the buses were run on electricity instead of diesel, the total annualized societal saving would be about €10.5 million. Among other areas, the savings stem from reduced noise and air pollution, which is estimated to lead to decreased care costs of up to €2.5 million. The annual reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would total 33,000 tons, corresponding to about 3,000 Swedish households.
“Standard investment appraisals do not take into account all of the costs that impact society and the environment. Therefore, to quantify all of the aspects, we have now calculated the monetary value of an electric bus line,” says Niklas Gustafsson, Head of Sustainability at the Volvo Group. “The results show that irrespective of the number of parameters taken into consideration, electric buses comprise the leading public transport solution.”