The Beijing metropolitan area has a population of over 19 million. The traffic problems are enormous and this is accompanied by considerable air pollution. The fact that it has improved considerably in recent years is due not least to the large-scale expansion of the public transport network. The speed at which new metro lines are being built is impressive not only in Beijing, but also in various other places in the country. In the capital, however, residents and visitors not only currently have 26 metro lines of different types at their disposal, but also a dense network of bus lines that serve all districts.
More than 12,000 buses are available for this purpose, a significant proportion of which are now purely electrically powered. In the entire area within the 3rd ring road, buses with combustion engines are already the exception.
Electromobility in bus transport has been present on important main axes for decades, as the city has had the trolleybus as a purely electric means of transport in its public transport service since 1953. The network has been significantly expanded again over the past ten years. The improvement in battery technology, which led to the use of more powerful traction batteries in order to be able to travel longer distances away from the overhead line network, while the batteries are then recharged without any loss of time on sections of the route under overhead lines – in-motion charging at its best! This enabled the system to almost double in size very quickly – measured in terms of line length and vehicles used.
A total of more than 1,250 battery-powered trolleybuses are currently travelling on 31 routes, making Beijing the company with the largest number of such vehicles in the world. There are also three BRT standard lines, with separate platforms and stops, which are travelled exclusively by the 231 articulated vehicles and each run radially from stations on the inner metro ring line 2. The BRT1 line has access platforms arranged in the centre of the road with half-height platform doors, while the buses have doors on the left-hand side. Lines BRT2 and BRT3, on the other hand, are served by almost identical vehicles with conventional right-sided doors, all stops are placed on the side of the streets.
It is impressive to see how quickly the battery trolleybuses switch from overhead line to battery mode – the poles are removed while the bus is travelling and the automatic wiring to the designated points takes barely more than 10-15 seconds. In the city centre, the overhead line has been dismantled at various points. In the coming years, part of the fleet is due to be replaced by new vehicles, with the use of batteries expected to increase once again.
The number of electric buses of various types, models and manufacturers in use is even greater. Vehicles from the Foton and Yinlong brands, which now operate under the name Gree Altairnano, dominate in the city centre, but other manufacturers such as Zhongtong, CRRC Electric, BYD, Anhui Ankai, Higer, Yutong and King Long are more common in the outer districts. The majority of the electric buses in use are 10 and 12 metre-long vehicles, while articulated vehicles are only used on individual lines. Noteworthy here are the Gree Altairnano 18-metre articulated buses, model ‘New Energy’, which are used on line 1 and also run on the central Tia’namen Square. There are now quite a few electrically powered double-deckers, which have been supplied by Foton and Gree Altairnano since 2016/17. A fleet of two-axle city sightseeing buses in a kind of ‘retro design’, supplied by Yinlong/Gree Altairnano, are also fully electric. Incidentally, all battery-only electric buses are charged exclusively at one of the more than 50 depots.
Almost all vehicles are equipped with digital destination displays, visual and acoustic passenger information inside and are air-conditioned. The equipment of the bus stops with passenger information and canopies has also improved significantly in recent years.
The number of electric buses will continue to rise, as China is the world’s largest manufacturer with around 40,000 units produced each year.
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Electric buses have a long tradition on Beijing’s city streets:
