Extract from "Urban Transport Magazine", May 2021
At the beginning of this year, a piece of news made the rounds in the press: “Berlin has the largest e-bus fleet in Germany”.
The consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has analysed all e-bus fleets throughout Germany. For the year 2020, this showed that Berlin, with 137 e-buses, is clearly ahead of Hamburg (55), Solingen (54) and Cologne (45). In terms of the federal states, the first three places are occupied by North Rhine-Westphalia with 177 examples, Berlin (137) and Baden-Württemberg (76).
In 2020, a total of around 680 such vehicles were on German roads, including 502 battery buses, 81 trolley buses and 64 vehicles with fuel cell drives. Nationwide, the number of buses with alternative drives almost doubled last year. […]
Fleet and operational strategy
Currently, 72 Solaris 12 metre electric buses are in operation. The buses are recharged twice every 24 hours at the depot on Indira Ghandi Street in the north-east of the city – at night and at midday.
BVG is working with renowned manufacturers for recharging and charging management.
The company PSI Transcom GmbH, which supplies the PSIebus system, was commissioned with the delivery of the depot and loading management system. PSIebus dispatches, monitors and controls the vehicles. The PSIebus depot and loading management system coordinates, schedules the vehicles initially in the Indira Gandhi Street depot and ensures that all buses are reliably ready for use at the start of their journey. All depot processes from vehicle location, parking, supply and workshop, driver registration and vehicle allocation are mapped in a digital system. […]
