The spotlight on health impacts of poor air quality and the renewed focus on reducing GHG emissions in recent years provide a strong impetus for cities to seek clean, low carbon transport solutions. When it comes to meeting growing demands for public transport and addressing environmental issues, hydrogen fuel cell (FC) buses offer significant potential. A commercialisation process for FC buses is underway, through which a shared vision has been agreed between vehicle suppliers and their customers. This is based on reducing costs through scale via a phased approach of pre-commercial demonstrations that will provide the evidence for wider uptake of these vehicles in the 2020s. The first step in upscaling FC bus deployment is underway through the JIVE project, which began in January 2017. JIVE 2 is its successor and is Europe’s most ambitious FC bus project to date: 156 buses in 11 cities across six countries. JIVE 2 involves regions with experience of the technology scaling up fuel cell bus fleets (e.g. Cologne), and those seeking to build their knowledge and experience by demonstrating FC buses in small fleets for the first time (e.g. Auxerre). All deployment locations in JIVE 2 share an ambition to increase the size of their FC bus fleets following successful initial demonstrations, hence the participating cities/regions will be natural locations for larger scale roll-out of the technology in the 2020s. A comprehensive data monitoring and assessment exercise will capture the relevant evidence to inform next steps for the sector, and the project’s impacts will be maximised by a high-impact dissemination campaign. This will involve reaching wide audiences via various channels, including a series of international Zero Emission Bus Conferences. The JIVE and JIVE 2 projects together will see the deployment and operation of nearly 300 FC buses in 16European cities/regions, thus providing a sound basis for further development of this sector.

The overall aim of ELIPTIC is to develop new use concepts and business cases to optimise existing electric infrastructure and rolling stock, saving both money and energy. ELIPTIC will advocate electric public transport sector at the political level and help develop political support for the electrification of public transport across Europe. ELIPTIC looks at three thematic pillars: • Safe integration of ebuses into existing electric PT infrastructure through (re)charging ebuses “en route”, upgrading trolleybus networks with battery buses or trolleyhybrids and automatic wiring/de-wiring technology • upgrading and/or regenerating electric public transport systems (flywheel, reversible substations) • Multi-purpose use of electric public transport infrastructure: safe (re)charging of non-public transport vehicles (pedelecs, electric cars/ taxis, utility trucks) With a strong focus on end users, ELIPTIC will analyse 23 use cases within the three thematic pillars. The project will support uptake and exploitation of results by developing guidelines and tools for implementation schemes for upgrading and/or regenerating electric public transport systems. Option generator and decision-making support tools, strategies and policy recommendations will be created to foster Europe-wide take up and rollout of various development schemes. Partners and other cities will benefit from ELIPTIC's stakeholder and user forum approach. ELIPTIC addresses the challenge of “transforming the use of conventionally fuelled vehicles in urban areas” by focusing on increasing the capacity of electric public transport, reducing the need for individual travel in urban areas and by expanding electric intermodal options (e.g. linking e-cars charging to tram infrastructure) for long-distance commuters. The project will strengthen the role of electric public transport, leading to both a significant reduction in fossil fuel consumption and to an improvement in air quality through reduced local emissions.

The objective of the EBSF_2 project is to validate different innovative solutions that combine efficiency of the bus system with more attractiveness. Such solutions are meant to represent the most innovative in the areas indicated by the Call: the project will proceed to their final validation before their introduction in the market, avoiding pure simulations or large use of prototypes. Following the System Approach, and with the participation of representatives of all key stakeholders categories, these activities will be introduced by the identification of innovation requirements (that will drive the impact assessment), the update of the Bus System Definition (as defined in EBSF). In addition to the impact analysis of the single solutions, the effect of combining key introduction will be evaluated. The “European Bus System of the Future" Roadmap will be updated with areas for further research and priorities linked to the project topics.