Expected environmental implications of hydrogen fuel cell buses in Australia

Developing more sustainable public transportation modes has become one of the key elements for mitigating the energy and environmental issues that are related to the global transportation sector, especially high capacity public transportation modes such as bus and subway systems. In this study, the expected environmental implications of Fuel Cell Electric Buses (FCEBs) in Australia during the next 25 years were determined. For this purpose, ARIMA and Exponential Smoothing models were developed to predict the expected GHG emissions and the annual kilometres that will be travelled by buses in 2050. The expected Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions produced by buses were determined, based on different scenarios (0% FCEBs penetration, 50% FCEBs penetration, 100% FCEBs penetration). The results of the study concluded that a slight increase in the annual travelled distance by buses in Australia is expected over the next 25 years, with a total increase of 6.9% during the period 2022–2050. Moreover, over time, the environmental implications of FCEBs will become more significant, due to the acceleration in the development of more eco-friendly hydrogen production methods, which could lead to a substantial decrease of up to 89% in GHG emissions, with a 100% transition to FCEBs by 2050 compared to 2022.