Hydrogen buses and public transport franchises

Because hydrogen buses will not be a regular part of the new public transport franchise for the KAN [Arnhem-Nijmegen Node], a continuation of the HyMove project has been proposed as an alternative. The HyMove bus will therefore continue to be the only bus in the region that runs on hydrogen.

 Because hydrogen buses will not be a regular part of the new public transport franchise for the KAN [Arnhem-Nijmegen Node], a continuation of the HyMove project has been proposed as an alternative. The HyMove bus will therefore continue to be the only bus in the region that runs on hydrogen. It will be incorporated in the normal timetable next year, in order to familiarise the population of Arnhem with running on hydrogen.

Hydrogen has been assigned an important role in the specification for the tender for the new public transport franchise that will run from 2013 to 2022 inclusive. It was proposed as an option to start a test with five buses running on hydrogen, which in a later phase could be extended, depending on a European subsidy. The winner of the tender, public transport company Hermes, took up the option by including in the plan five smaller buses running on hydrogen that would be used for urban transport in Arnhem. The municipality recently made it known that it was rejecting the option, because it found that the buses were too small and did not have the desired image. The Municipality of Arnhem would prefer larger buses running on hydrogen.

“Having buses running on hydrogen in regular use in the public transport franchise in the KAN region would have been ideal for the continuation of the HyMove project”, says Jan van Beckhoven, director of the Stichting Waterstof Onderneming Gelderland. “That appears to be difficult to achieve at the moment, but I appreciate that the management of the Stadsregio is one of the first to include running on hydrogen so emphatically in the tender. We are currently preparing a continuation project in order to gain more knowledge for the large-scale introduction of the type of bus for which we developed the HyMove project.

The Stadsregio has declared that the additional contribution made by the buses running on hydrogen is still too little from a mobility point of view and from environmental considerations. Hermes has provided green gas for the entire vehicle fleet (except for trolleybuses, trains and local buses), so that the medium and long term environmental objectives can nevertheless be achieved. Furthermore, the Stadsregio is of the opinion that hydrogen is still at the experimental stage and that large-scale application is not yet on the agenda. The Stadsregio is participating in the HyMove project so that it can follow developments in the field of hydrogen closely.

Jan van Beckhoven understands that point of view, but would still like to point out that the HyMove project has demonstrated that the technology is not a problem, and that buses running on hydrogen can be built in a cost-effective manner. The HyMove bus is an existing vehicle that was converted to run on hydrogen. The investment cost of such a retrofitted bus is 20-30% lower than that of an off-the-shelf hydrogen-powered bus from the factory. Because its energy consumption per kilometre is so low, its hydrogen consumption is much less than that of other buses running on hydrogen. This contributes to the operating costs being much lower. HyMove is also busy at the moment with setting up HyMove BV, which will be involved on a commercial basis in producing buses running on hydrogen in accordance with the HyMove concept.