Lesson
Part of: Financing Sustainable Urban Development: An Introduction

Electric buses: Example of a sustainable urban project

BOOKMARK

Cities around the world are turning to electric buses to decrease emissions and sprawl while providing better service and reducing costs in the long term. Via WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities/Youtube

Cities around the world are turning to electric buses to decrease emissions and sprawl while providing better service and reducing costs in the long term. Via WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities/Youtube

Low-and zero-emission buses decrease environmental impacts while creating economic, environmental, and health benefits. Transitioning bus fleets to clean technologies can also improve quality of service and reduce costs in the long term.  

In Bogota, Colombia, operators lease both buses and batteries. This innovation tackles two big challenges to electric bus adoption –the high initial cost of buying the bus and the risk of poor battery performance are transferred from the operator to the lessor. This addresses the reluctance of operators to bear the risk of transitioning to a new technology. In Bogota, the lessor is the bus or battery manufacturer, who is in a better position to take technology risks (Li et al 2018).