TUMI E-Bus Mission aims to electrify public transit across the Global South
Often referred to as the “greenest city in the world,” Curitiba,
Brazil, has long been held as a model for urban sustainability due to its green
space, recycling programs, environmental education – and especially its
extensive system of dedicated-lane bus rapid transit.
But what of the buses themselves? As of 2020, only 4 percent of
Curitiba’s buses were hybrid and none were electric. The city wants to move
one-third of its buses to electric by 2030 and completely decarbonize its fleet
by 2050 — and it is receiving strategic planning and technical assistance from
the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI) E-Bus Mission.
Developed from the Action towards Climate-friendly Transport
Initiative launched at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, the TUMI E-Bus Mission supports 20 deep dive
cities, including Curitiba, in their transition to electric bus deployment.
These cities – all in the Global South – were chosen based on readiness,
potential for GHG mitigation, and sphere of influence.
Expanding to a broad learning network
Now TUMI is expanding its E-Bus Mission to a larger learning
network of cities across India, Indonesia, Africa, and Latin America – the
first of its kind in the Global South. Through the TUMI E-Bus City Network,
co-led by ICLEI and the International Association of Public Transport (UITP),
member cities benefit from shared knowledge and resources, exchanging both best
practices and lessons learned while seeking to accelerate the transition to
e-bus fleets.
The TUMI E-Bus Mission is aiming for 100 network cities by 2022
and 500 by 2025. The initiative is a peer-to-peer exchange as well as capacity
building for cities at different stages of procurement to plan and implement
electric buses. While the 20 deep-dive cities already have concrete goals to
electrify their bus fleets over the next few years, network cities can learn
from the experiences of the deep dive cities in setting and implementing goals
of their own.
The 20 deep dive cities and 50+ network cities in the TUMI E-Bus Mission span across Latin America, Africa, India, and Indonesia. TUMI hopes to expand the network – the first of its kind in the Global South – to 100 cities by the end of 2022 and 500 cities by 2025.
The purpose is not simply to increase the number of electric
buses, but also to incentivize maturation of e-bus technology, leading to mass
rollout worldwide, said Jens Giersdorf, Head of the TUMI initiative at the
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), which is
implementing the program on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic
Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
“The deep dive cities are important to creating a mass market for
e-buses. Most of these are large cities, and their goals for electrification of
public transport will shape national and regional markets. It will be easier to
reach economies of scale,” Giersdorf said. “The regional city networks are
important to share these experiences, discuss challenges for smaller cities,
and further scale up e-bus deployment.”
Ambitious goal to reduce global emissions from urban transport
The ultimate objective is for both deep dive and network cities
across the Global South to procure more than 100,000 electric buses, reducing
greenhouse gas emissions by more than 15 megatons as well as curtailing the
particulate air pollution and noise pollution from gasoline or diesel-fueled
urban bus fleets.
Such an ambitious goal is not without challenges. Electric buses
have much lower fuel and maintenance costs, but higher up-front purchase costs,
so cities need to develop new business models to plan for procurement. An extra
layer of complexity is added in cities where bus fleets are owned and operated
by several different public and private entities.
Having a learning network for cities making the e-bus transition —
including requirements for data collection, transparency, monitoring, and
evaluation — is critical to meeting these challenges. “The work in the deep
dive cities can help to build transparency and data on key performance
indicators of e-buses. Depending on region, geography, or even air conditioning
usage, charging infrastructure and bus schedules may need to be adjusted,”
Giersdorf said.
Also headlining the launch of the TUMI E-Bus Mission at the International Transport Forum in Leipzig were [left to right] Angela Maria Orozco, Minister of Transportation for the Republic of Colombia; Jens Giersdorf, Head of the TUMI initiative at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ); Heather Thompson, Chief Executive Officer for the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP); and Ben Well, Director of Integrated Transport & Innovation at WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities.
Multiple
organizations share the work
Besides GIZ, partners for the TUMI E-Bus Mission initiative
include C40 Cities, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, Institute for
Transportation and Development Policy, International Association of Public
Transport, International Council on Clean Transportation, and World Resources
Institute. The project is funded by BMZ.
“ICLEI is proud to co-lead the TUMI E-Bus Mission City Network,”
said Tu My Tran, Head of ICLEI’s Sustainable Mobility program. “It is important
for cities to learn and exchange experiences and discuss planning and
implementation of innovative solutions to common problems. This is the case for
electric buses where there is a huge potential for cities in the Global South
and emerging economies to leapfrog and accelerate transport decarbonization.”
“At UITP we work every day to advocate for the necessary cause of
clean modes of transportation and collaborate with our members worldwide on
solutions that enable change,” said Guido Di Pasquale, Co-Director of Knowledge
and Innovation at UITP. “It is projects such as the TUMI E-Bus mission
that facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ensure the key potential of
electric buses is translated into action across the world, in particular the
Global South.”
Municipal transit authorities, non-governmental organizations, or
bus companies in Africa, Asia, or Latin America that would like to learn more
about the TUMI E-Bus Mission City Network can find out more at the project website or contact project
managers at tumi-network@iclei.org and ebus@transformative-mobility.org.
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