All Public Buses In Amsterdam Will Be EVs By 2025

The Dutch city of Amsterdam is going all electric, with regards to public buses that is.

The city is planning for the transition from diesel buses (what’s in use now) to electric ones to be complete by 2025, reportedly.

As humorously put by the city’s transport alderman Abdeluheb Choho in an interview with the Volkskrant, the city has decided to simply go all out rather than be conservative (a bit out of character for the Dutch, I’d say 🙂 ).

“This project means we are saying goodbye to symbolic behaviour and pilot projects. We have decided to just do it, not to experiment with five buses.”

The plan is reportedly that the first 40 electric buses will be delivered in roughly 2 years time, with all diesel buses being slowly phased out, until there are none left (by 2025 at the latest).

Choho also noted: “We will make Amsterdam more sustainable on a large scale, and we do that with partners who have big ambitions. Front-runners such as the GVB deserve a podium and imitation.”

DutchNews.nl provides a bit more information:

The ferries over the IJ between the city centre and Noord will also be powered by green electricity.

Amsterdam is not the first city to focus on electricity-powered public transport. Brabant has introduced some battery-driven buses and small-scale experiments are under way in Utrecht and Maastricht. Bus company Abellio, which is 100% owned by Dutch national railway firm NS, has also pledged to ensure the 300 buses operating in Limburg province are electric if it wins the concession. The six buses on the Wadden Sea island of Schiermonnikoog are also electric.

Good call, I’d say. With the substantial savings to be had, why not just make the transition relatively rapidly? Why stick with behavior that is more or less just “symbolic” (as Choho put it)? Sure, there is a sunk cost the city will lose (the non-electric buses it has already purchased). But there are daily costs to resident health that come from the diesel pollution.

Image Credit: GVB