There’s a clear public good in public transport. The more people who are on buses and trains, the fewer private cars there are on the road, the better our city and town centres become.
Less congestion, fewer pollutants, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and safer roads for pedestrians and cyclists. It’s all part of a change we need to make, not just to tackle climate change, but also to reduce the 6.7 million premature deaths every year, worldwide, from air pollution, as reported by the United Nations Development Programme.
Should that public transport be powered by electricity, though? Presumably, eventually, it should be, but is electric power for buses and trains really so critical right here, right now? Surely, it’s enough to just start getting people out of their cars, and on to public transport, whether it’s powered by diesel or by batteries?
Annunziata Esposito Amideo is the academic programme director of the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and part of the UCD Transport Research Hub. “We have to include in the picture electrification of the private transport as well,” she says. “From a strategic decision-making perspective, it is important to look at the power grid capacity and the opportunity to further expand the charging station infrastructure across the country – there are different technologies for both chargers and EV vehicles. This transition from internal combustion engine vehicles to electrified vehicles can further support sustainability targets around carbon emission reduction.”
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Amideo’s thinking is that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to decarbonising transport, both public and private, and that it’s important to keep a sense of perspective when it comes to making the big transition. She says the electrification of the transport system and, broadly speaking, the alternative fuel-powered transportation modes, is a process that will be seen as complementing the current transportation system during the energy transition and, eventually, the predominant transport technology once the energy transition reaches its peak. In light of supporting decision making, she believes we need to look at transport electrification from a broader perspective, which will include both public and private modes, working together towards a better and more sustainable future.
The maths is pretty straightforward – even leaving electric buses out of it, it’s been estimated that a single bus can replace as many as 75 cars, cutting the emissions for those journeys by 70 per cent. However, it’s important to remember that to reach that kind of cut, the bus has to be full. Getting people on to public transport, then, is the first and most important step. Electric power can come later.
There’s a further, potential imperative to getting more electric public transport on to our roads and rails, and that’s the cost of operation, although it seems that the figures when it comes to these calculations are a little unclear as yet.
In theory, it should be a slam dunk for electric buses to be cheaper to operate than diesel buses. If we were talking about private cars, then the maths is incredibly straightforward – assuming that you can do most of your charging at home, then the cost of ‘fuelling’ an electric car is around one quarter the annual cost of putting in petrol or diesel, and that’s before the recent oil price shock.
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- In theory, it should be a slam dunk for electric buses to be cheaper to operate than diesel buses. If we were talking about private cars, then the maths is incredibly straightforward. When it comes to electric buses, however, the balance of cost seems less clear, writes Neil Briscoe, a contributor specialising in motoring. Read more.
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When it comes to EV buses, however, the balance of cost seems less clear. A 2019 study by the American Public Power Association found that an electric city bus cost about $750,000 to buy, compared to the $500,000 cost of a diesel bus. However, it was then calculated that the electric bus would generate some $400,000 in fuel savings and a further $125,000 in maintenance and repair savings. Electric vehicles, thanks to their simplicity, tend to be lower in servicing and maintenance costs over time than combustion-engine vehicles. That seems to suggest that for governments and public transport providers, electric power rules.
However, more recent European figures seem to show a picture that is less clear. A study by the city of Offenburg in Germany in 2021 found that electric bus operating costs were actually higher than those for diesel buses, but those figures were expected to reverse by 2030 on the basis of more affordable batteries and likely higher diesel costs. It also probably doesn’t help that Germany has some of the most expensive electricity costs in Europe.
Indeed, the national cost of electricity will need to be a part of the calculation. A 2025 study, published in the World Electric Vehicle Journal, found a delicate balance between the cost of EV buses and diesel power, with the authors recommending that electric buses would be cheaper to operate in countries such as Finland, France, Belgium, and Greece while others, such as Malta, Bulgaria, and Cyprus, were advised to stick with diesel for now, in a strictly budgeting sense.
Those studies, of course, do not make allowances for the increasing use of renewable energy, nor the volatility in the cost of diesel, as has been amply demonstrated in the past few months. Essentially, the conclusion is double-ended – even with diesel power, getting more people on to public transport cuts emissions overall. Add electric power to that mix, and the circle becomes ever more virtuous.
