Public transport helps save energy and reduce CO2 emissions
The Federal Office of Transport (FOT) is committed to ensuring that public transport makes a substantial contribution to energy saving and CO2 reduction. To this end, it has launched 100 projects over the past seven years. The goal is to save around 600 gigawatt hours per year - electricity for 150,000 households.
Since its launch in 2013, 100 projects have been launched as part of ESöV; 46 projects have already been completed and 54 are still in progress. The federal government provides funding for research projects that create the basis for energy-saving measures by transport companies. The federal government covers up to 40 percent of the costs of the research projects. So far, research projects with a total volume of almost 35 million Swiss francs have been triggered. Of this, just under 23 million has been raised by the transport companies. "This testifies to the industry's commitment to energy-saving, innovative and sustainable public transport," said Rudolf Sperlich, vice director of the Federal Office of Transport (FOT), at a media event in Biel today. The FOT promotes projects in all means of public transport: Railroads, streetcars, buses, cable cars and ships.
Exemplary transport companies
An exemplary project is the recovery of braking energy on the Biel-Magglingen funicular railroad. Verkehrsbetriebe Biel (VB) installed a battery storage system and adapted the system control. Thanks to recuperation, up to 80 percent of the braking energy is stored and is then available for the next journey. The project was realized with the companies Frey AG Stans and Doppelmayr-Garaventa Group under the supervision of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Technology and Architecture. In addition, a photovoltaic system has been in operation on the roof of the top station since the beginning of September. Its energy production can also be stored in batteries for rail operations.
The FOT contributed 80,000 Swiss francs for the corresponding research work. In total, up to 3 million Swiss francs per year are available for ESöV projects for further research work. In the coming years, the main focus will be on making the knowledge gained so far more widely known and driving forward implementation. (Source: FOEN)
