Advancing from efficiency to sustainability in Swedish medium-sized cities: an approach for recommending powertrains and energy carriers for public bus transport systems
Institution: | Blekinge Institute of Technology |
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Department: | |
Year: | 2014 |
Keywords: | sustainability - general; electric bus; life cycle assessment; greenhouse gas emissions |
Record ID: | 1352423 |
Full text PDF: | http://www.bth.se/fou/forskinfo.nsf/all/5ee2925e367c9962c1257c42005ca9d2?OpenDocument |
European national, regional, and local authorities have started to take action to make public bus transport services more effective and less polluting. Some see the possibility to move beyond a narrow focus on efficiency or carbon dioxide reductions towards an integrated sustainability perspective. This paper uses this perspective to build and test a new assessment approach that should enhance decisions on bus transport powertrains and energy carriers for Swedish medium-sized cities. The study suggests that a superiority of electric powertrains is revealed if a traditional economic analysis is integrated with a strategic sustainability perspective.