Climate change and air quality are amongst the issues where the European Commission places more emphasis. The transport sector is one of the most pollutants, contributing to 23% of greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted globally. To reduce this amount, the EU is stablishing policies to promote the use of efficient and non-polluting vehicles in European cities (i.e. Directive 2009/33 / EC).
To overcome this situation, increasingly more solutions are being developed to convert diesel driven vehicles to electricity driven ones. However, the market still has a long way to grow to be 0 % pollutant. In the automotive sector, almost all kind of vehicles have already an electric solution to substitute the current polluting ones; nevertheless, there is still no alternative developed to substitute current diesel driven city tour buses. Nowadays, Double Decker city tour buses are present in almost all large cities in the world, transporting daily millions of people. Despite being more ecological than private cars, driving more people in less space, also pollute and need to be developed to reduce world’s pollution.
CARROCERÍAS AYATS (hereinafter AYATS) is an SME bus company with more than 100 years of experience, internationally renowned for the construction of personalised Double Decker Buses (DDBs). AYATS has identified this business opportunity and aims through the STYLUS project to develop the first open-top electric Double Decker tourist Bus (hereinafter eDDB).
The general objective of the project is to develop the first urban double decker bus 100% electric for tourist use in order to contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions, and other gases of great relevance in urban environments (NOx, SOx, particles, non-metallic hydrocarbons, etc.) that affect air quality in cities.
For the successful completion of the project, specific objectives are:
- Develop an innovative urban electric double decker bus (eDDB) with a capacity of 98 people (96 seated, PMR and driver) to accelerate the introduction of electric vehicles in the tourism sector
- Improve the performance of the bus through an increase of the autonomy of 10 to 20% of energy management systems
- Lighten body and chassis to achieve an eDDB of only 22 tons.
- Contribute to improve air quality in the urban environment with a reduction of CO2 emissions, and other gases (NOx, SOx, particles, non-metallic hydrocarbons, etc.).
- Reduce the acoustic emissions of urban traffic.
- Allow the company to get into the niche of electric vehicles by providing the first completely electric double-decker bus.
- Positioning AYATS in the national and international market with an increase of 10% of its exports offering an innovative electric tourist bus.
