As cities threaten diesel coach bans, the IRU’s Coach of the Future report examines the alternatives, and stresses that without enough time to implement, money will be wasted
It’s all very well European cities banning diesel coaches outright from 2025, but realistically, there is nothing on the market that will be able to take diesel’s place in that short a time.
The World Road Transport Organisation (IRU) has recognised this with its Coach of the Future report, published last week.
The report compares the available alternatives to diesel coaches, and concludes that diesel bans should be postponed until 2035 to allow coach manufacturers and operators enough time to upgrade.
Background
In 2016 several major cities made a political commitment to ban diesel vehicles in the next 10 years.
While there are a good number of alternatives for buses, the coach market still depends on Euro 6 diesels, not least because of the industry’s long-distance nature: Lack of refuelling points and other infrastructure along routes is a major barrier to alternative fuels.
The IRU says that coach travel represents 40% of the EU’s collective road transport activity, with 400,000 coaches covering distances of 500km per trip on average.
Its Coach of the Future report identifies and assesses the available alternatives to diesel coaches in the short-to-medium term, taking into account the high mileage and long-distance nature of tourist coaches.
It assumes that the time frame needed to replace 50% of the existing diesel coach fleet is 2023-2035, and compares the alternatives to a Euro 6 diesel as the base vehicle.
The IRU’s detailed report takes into account well-to-wheel emissions for each alternative vehicle type, and uses tables to compare data including barriers and their levels of importance, emission levels, operating costs, abatement costs, and infrastructure costs.
The alternatives
The report examines three main alternatives to diesel coaches. They are:
- Liquefied natural gas (LNG): The study uses bio-LNG, made with 20% biomethane, as its benchmark
- Biofuels: Hydrotreated vegetable oils (HVO) blended at 30% with diesel were the study’s benchmark
- Hybrids: The study assumes that diesel-electric hybrid coaches would run as diesel most of the time, switching to electric in urban areas.
Comparisons
The report found that bio-LNG has the least barriers to implementation, in terms of key costs, technology, refuelling infrastructure and fuel supply. However, its infrastructure network needs to be in place.
HVO has the least infrastructure/technology barriers, as it can be used in a conventional diesel engine, but the fuel itself has availability and economic constraints.
Hybrids have the highest acquisition and maintenance costs.
In terms of operating costs, the study found that over the lifetime of a vehicle, only bio-LNG won’t incur higher annual capital, maintenance and fuel costs compared to a Euro 6 diesel – in fact, bio-LNG annual costs are 3.7% lower, despite higher vehicle purchase cost, thanks to lower fuel prices.
Hybrid costs would be 4.3% higher, and HVO costs would be 13.4% higher.
For abatement costs, bio-LNG again emerges as the winner.
The timeframe
The report starts its fleet renewal timeframe in 2023, to take into account manufacturers’ production times and consequent vehicle availability.
From there, it assumes a coach fleet renewal rate of 5% per year, based on EU averages in the last 15 years.
If all new vehicles bought from then on were LNG, biofuel or hybrid, more than 50% of the EU coach fleet would be non-diesel by 2035, at which point the report says diesel bans in cities would be feasible from the coach industry’s perspective.
This is in line with the European Commission’s projections that coach fleets will be primarily diesel until at least 2030.
The report reiterates that if diesel bans are in effect before 2035, coach operators will be exposed to “significant financial losses for minimal environmental benefits as compared to Euro 6 vehicles”.
IRU’s conclusion
Bio-LNG emerges as the alternative fuel with the lowest abatement costs and most manageable barriers, though with higher infrastructure costs.
HVO has medium abatement costs due to higher fuel costs, but is still promising thanks to the infrastructure availability and low supply constraints.
Hybrid take-up is hampered by high purchase prices and insufficient battery technology.
The report points out that Euro 6 diesel is already highly efficient, so the environmental benefits of the new technology are relatively small.
The uptake of these vehicles needs an enabling policy framework, and premature diesel bans would not allow economies of scale. In this scenario, the environmental benefits would be lower than the resources invested.
The IRU’s message is clear: For the best results, give the industry time.routeone comment
Thank goodness the IRU has addressed the expectation on coach operators to upgrade their fleets to meet unrealistic no-diesel goals. It’s bad enough acquiring enough Euro 6 vehicles to comply with ULEZ and CAZ requirements; another story altogether trying to buy non-diesel alternatives when the market for them barely exists yet. This report calls on authorities to extend the timeline to 2035 to allow the technology to develop, and for legislative policies to help steer operators away from buying diesel coaches after 2023. If its calls are heeded, the future looks bright for coaches in Europe.
