As part of Triangulum, Rogaland County Council and Kolumbus have acquired three emission-free electric buses, which rolled on to the roads in February 2017. This gave the Stavanger region a total of five electric buses (with the first two arriving in 2015), the first in Norway.

Mother Earth
Before arrival, three high schools held a competition to create their own design for the buses. Aftenbladet.no published the top 10 designs and readers voted for their favourite for visual expression. In the end, it was ‘mother earth’, which won with 22,000 votes. In the centre of Stavanger, the buses were unveiled with balloons, cupcakes, coffee and a great atmosphere.

The five electric buses have saved the urban area from additional CO₂ and other environmental pollutants since 2015 and 2017. But the main objective of this trial project was to increase the knowledge of electric buses and to find out how the public transport system in the region can adapt to the electric buses, and vice versa. We have gathered important information regarding the operation, maintenance and driver experience of these vehicles.

Learning from Kolumbus
Following in our footsteps, Prague and Leipzig have made contact and come to visit to learn more about the electric bus project. Other public transport companies in Norway have also done the same before purchasing their own electric buses.

New smart solutions
Being the first in Norway to try buses that run on battery power has led to increased attention on electric buses and emission-free public transport in the region. The network in Europe which we have developed through Triangulum, has given us new EU-projects, such as TrAM – an electric boat that is currently being built and will operate between Hommersåk and Stavanger. Recently, the county council decided to cut CO₂ emissions on Kvitsøy ferry, which is now going to run on power from a local onshore energy distribution network (the electricity grid), biodiesel, biogas, hydrogen or an optional combination of these.

*NOx = nitrogen oxides, an exhaust gas that is responsible for smog and the typical brown cloud covering larger cities and providing poor air quality. NOx is also the main source of acid rain.