2015-04-07 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                                     7 APRIL 2015


In total, the research identified 26 electric bus manufacturers comprising of 19 international and 7
on-shore based companies. Additionally, 14 transport agencies and councils operating electric
buses around the world were contacted and asked detailed questions about their operations.
In order to narrow down the field of potential bus manufacturers, a multi-criteria analysis was
used covering the following areas:
 Vehicle performance (15%)
 Battery performance (15%)
 Charging infrastructure – complexity of deployment (15%)
 Capital cost (25%)
 Operating cost (5%)
 Cost of charging infrastructure (10%)
 After sales support (15%)
As a result of this assessment, four manufacturers were shortlisted, these being ranked in order
of highest score to lowest as:
 Optare – United Kingdom
 BYD – China
 OLEV – South Korea
 SOLARIS – Poland


4.    Strategic Outline Case (SOC)

The SOC was prepared considering the top two shortlisted manufacturers, and adopted a Net
Present Cost (NPC) approach which included:
 Initial upfront purchase costs including anticipated energy and maintenance costs of a single
   electric bus on a ‘like for like’ basis;
 A 15 year time horizon for capital expenditure; and
 Indicative operational costs of running the electric bus as a fleet on route 627 Tewantin –
   Sunshine Beach.
The findings indicated that:
 BYD were cheapest in terms of upfront costs;
 Optare were cheapest in terms of servicing and maintenance costs;
 There were only marginal differences in fuel efficiency between the two buses; and
 On total lifetime comparative costs, Optare was likely to be the most cost effective option for
   route 627 Tewantin – Sunshine Beach.
A further significant advantage of the Optare bus for Noosa is that it is a 10 metre bus compared
to a 12 metre BYD bus, however passenger capacity of the smaller bus is greater.
The SOC also identified a number of qualitative benefits if electric buses were introduced into the
Noosa network, including:
 increased economic development and tourism visitation;
 encouraging greater use of public transport; and
 better value for money through reduced operational costs.

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