17 December 2015
For immediate release

The future of public transport is electric

The Wellington Regional Council is to be congratulated on its commitment to an all-electric bus fleet for the future of Wellington, says Greg Skelton, CEO of Wellington Electricity.

“Not only is it good for the environment, but in the longer term electricity technology will become increasingly cost competitive. In the long run, it’s the only way to go.
“New Zealand is 80% renewable and will be at 90% within a decade, so this is a good base from which to contemplate an electric future in public transport,” he says.

“What the city has to face is that there is a short term problem. The current trolley buses operate on outdated and now unreliable technology. The electricity network they operate on dates back to the days of the trams which ceased operation in the city in the 1960s and it can’t be patched up any longer. Pure and simple, it has simply reached the end of its life. It would be throwing good money after bad to retain this outdated 1930’s supply equipment and expect it to carry more load and maintain acceptable service performance.

“An interim measure of high temperature diesel buses is a good one. The benefit of these buses is their flexibility. The Council will be able to build a service network with them that will boost usage much faster than replacement trolleys ever could and at a much more reasonable cost. That will get people out of their cars and onto buses.

“Electric-powered bus technology still has a way to go, but it is advancing rapidly,” he says.

There are now many trials going on around the world and modern electric buses are already proving their worth in densely populated areas with short, flat distances and high usage. More development is required for them to be efficiently used on the wider ranging routes characteristic of Wellington.

“It would have been ideal for Wellington to transition from trolleys to new era of electric buses, but we are faced with a temporary gap between a now obsolete network and a new technology which is not yet commercially fully developed,” says Mr Skelton.

“It may seem counter intuitive to some, but trolley buses, for all their sentimental value, are not a direct technical pathway to an electric public transport future.
“We also support the idea of a symposium on electric-powered vehicles proposed by the Regional Council and will actively participate,” says Mr Skelton.

“It is important that we hold fast to a vision of an electric future and not get side-tracked along the way or anchored in a by-gone era which has become technically obsolete. New investment in commercially proven new technology is the right commercial and service approach to support an electric future,” he says.

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