Constant renewal of busses is an obstacle for circularity

Over the last few years, public transport has suffered from a problem of increasing costs without a corresponding increase in the availability of travel options. Helene Lidestam is a Senior Researcher at VTI and a Professor at Linköping University. She has followed this development and examined the reasons behind the increases in costs. More recently, she has also connected the costs with both sustainability and circularity in the sector, primarily with regards to the bus fleet.

According to Helene Lidestam there are several factors that influence the costs and one of these is the age limit in the tender contracts stipulating that the busses must be relatively new.

“The age requirement not only increases costs, it can also be an obstacle to sustainability and circularity”.

The contracts often stipulate a maximum permitted age for each bus along with a maximum average age for the operator’s entire fleet. Fully functional busses that are perhaps not older than 15 years are sent for scrap as, due to the tender specifications, there is no demand for used busses.

“A bus company that commences a contract with a fleet consisting entirely of new busses will, within a few years, need to purchase new busses again as the average age of the whole fleet reaches the age limit. This, together with a low demand for used busses, means that there is very little circularity in the sector, at least not when it comes to vehicles”, says Helene Lidestam.

It is not just the age limit that makes the busses difficult to sell on the second-hand market. It is also due to the regional public transport authorities that procure public transport and often have their own requirements that mean that the busses are not suitable for use in other regions. That different, and perhaps unnecessary, requirements increase costs and encumber circularity is a well-known problem and as a solution to this Bus Nordic was established.

Bus Nordic is a Nordic collaboration involving sector organisations and capital city regions that has resulted in a recommended standard with common functionality requirements for busses. The standard means that the busses can be used, reused, and sold on within different contract areas within the Nordic countries.

“Bus Nordic is a promising initiative and has shown some success”, says Helene Lidestam, however unfortunately, experience shows that many public transport authorities still want to have additional requirements or exceptions. This could be related to ventilation, the distance between seats, or the design of the door openings. These many additional requirements mean that the standard becomes diluted.

Helene conducts her research together with colleagues from the universities of Linköping, Karlstad and Lund and she hopes that their research can contribute to changes in the procurement process that take into consideration cost efficiency, the environment, and circularity. The project is conducted along with public transport authorities, bus operators, and sector organisations.

“Everyone contributes within their own roles and with their own perspectives and it is important to encompass both the public transport authorities’ requirements and the operators’ capacity to live up to them”.

Text: Hillevi Ternström

Translation: CBG