Wuppertal, the ‘capital’ of the Bergisches Land region and also its largest municipality, is still comparatively young. The city only came into being on 1 August 1929 when the towns and municipalities of Elberfeld, Barmen, Beyenburg, Cronenberg, Ronsdorf and Vohwinkel merged to form the new city of Elberfeld-Barmen. The citizens of the city found this name unattractive and too complicated, which is why it was given the new name Wuppertal in 1930.
The city stretches from east to west in the narrow valley of the Wupper, often only a few hundred metres wide. Right next to it, the hills rise up to the right and left, often steeply. As a result, Wuppertal has the most unusual ‘underground railway’ in the world: it does not run on the ‘minus 1’ level, but on the ‘plus 1’ level. So not underground. Instead, an elevated railway was built (according to plans by Cologne engineer Eugen Langen). The ‘suspension railway’, a monorail system on which the vehicles are suspended in a pendulum fashion, runs on a 13.5-kilometre-long steel frame – mostly above the Wupper, but also above the streets in Wuppertal-Vohwinkel. The suspension railway is as legendary as it is basically completely accident-free. The elephant ‘Tuffi’, who was supposed to advertise the guest performance of a circus in the city, made a spectacular jump from the suspension railway – he wasn’t used to that, he panicked. And around the turn of the millennium, railbus 4 fell from the scaffolding into the Wupper at Robert-Daum-Platz – a cramp had been forgotten in the track during construction work.
Due to the history of the city, Wuppertal had two incompatible tram networks: the metre-gauge former Barmer tram and its standard-gauge sister from Elberfeld. And as it happens, two gauges in one city don’t last in the long run. So first the narrow-gauge Barmer network was converted to buses, and the standard-gauge Elberfeld network soon followed.
The trolleybus also made a brief interlude in the city from 1949 to 1972 using 25 vehicles.
Wuppertaler Stadtwerke (WSW) has long been a pure bus company – apart from the suspension railway with its 31 articulated railbuss. The fleet comprises a good 280 vehicles, which are stationed at the depots in Nächstebreck (on the heights in the north-east of the city) and Varresbeck (fairly central in Elberfeld).
After trolleybus operations were discontinued, Wuppertal’s buses ran exclusively on diesel for a long time. This changed in 2020 when WSW ordered ten New A 330 FC hydrogen buses from Belgian bus manufacturer Van Hool in a joint order with Cologne/Bonn-based RVK. And because they were satisfied with their performance and results, a further ten hydrogen buses were added in 2022, again in a joint order with RVK: this time, the supplier for both companies was the Polish/Spanish bus manufacturer Solaris.
February 2025: 32 new hydrogen buses
And now WSW is really stepping on the gas when it comes to hydrogen buses. On 25 February, 32 new hydrogen buses were presented at Betrieshof Nächstebreck. 19 of them are 12-metre-long ‘Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogen’ solo buses, while the other 13 are ‘Solaris Urbino 18 hydrogen’ articulated buses.
Wuppertal is proud to operate one of the largest fleets of hydrogen buses in Germany. Other companies that already have a large number of these vehicles in operation include the Cologne/Bonn-based RVK, which already has more than 100 vehicles from the manufacturers Van Hool, Solaris and Wrightbus, and the Rostock district’s ‘rebus’, which recently put 52 Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogen buses into service – we reported here: https://www.urban-transport-magazine.com/en/rostock-district-52-solaris-hydrogen-buses-for-rebus/
Let’s take a closer look at the Wuppertal buses. They have the familiar WSW look in a strong mid-blue colour. The solo buses can busry 88 passengers, 32 of whom have a seat, while the articulated buses can busry 119 passengers and offer 49 seats. The drivers are supported by several assistance systems and the busriages offer passengers amenities such as Wi-Fi and air conditioning. The solo buses have an unladen weight of 12,800 kg, while the articulated buses weigh in at 19,200 kg.
The electric central motors give the solo buses a drive power of 160 kW (equivalent to 218 hp). This is remarkable, because in a city with the challenging topography of Wuppertal in particular, you would expect diesel buses to have significantly more horsepower. However, an electric motor is much more rev-happy than a diesel engine, which is why the buses have a decent engine. The articulated vehicles have a drive power of 208 kW (equivalent to 283 hp).
Propulsion is provided by electric central motors, which transfer their power to the second axle of the solo bus and to the third axle of the articulated bus, i.e. the rear axle. The articulated vehicle is therefore a genuine articulated bus.
The hydrogen reacts with the oxygen in the air in a fuel cell from the Canadian manufacturer Ballard and thus generates the electricity that drives the buses.
The tank of the solo buses is located on the roof of the bus in the form of five pressurised cylinders. They can fill up with 37.5 kg of hydrogen, i.e. 7.5 kg per pressurised cylinder. A consumption of 8.5 kg per 100 kilometres gives them a completely unproblematic range of a good 350 to 400 kilometres.
The articulated buses take 51.2 kg of hydrogen on board, which is stored in eight pressurised cylinders on the roof. This means that each pressurised cylinder holds an average of 6.4 kg of hydrogen. With a consumption of 11 kg per 100 kilometres, the articulated buses also have a range of a good 400 kilometres without any problems.
The buses are refuelled at the Nächstebreck depot or directly on the neighbouring site of the Wuppertal waste incineration plant. Refuelling takes 10 to 12 minutes. WSW CEO Markus Hilkenbach at the presentation of the new hydrogen buses: ‘It was important to us to have refuelling times that are roughly the same as those of a diesel bus.’
Approximately 20% of the refuelling takes place right next to the Nächstebreck depot at the Wuppertal waste incineration plant, where hydrogen is also produced using the energy released during incineration. At the same time as the new buses were put into service, a new hydrogen refuelling station from Danish manufacturer ‘Everfuel’ was opened at the Nächstebreck depot, which supplies the remaining 80% of the hydrogen required by the buses. It consists of two refuelling columns. The system stores 180 kilograms of hydrogen in a ‘buffer tank’ and 900 kilograms on the tank semi-trailers used by Everfuel to deliver the hydrogen. Every day, 60 fuel cell buses can be refuelled – Wuppertal does not yet have that many. The refuelling facility can also be expanded. Sabine Schnake, Managing Director of WSW mobil GmbH: ‘With the refuelling station on our own premises, it takes less time to refuel a bus. And we can plan refuelling better. Which means we can plan the use of our buses better.’
As long as the hydrogen is under high pressure, it flows automatically from the refuelling station into the bus. A compressor only has to be switched on when the pressure drops as the hydrogen is released into the buses. And there is also a compressor system between the tank trailers and the petrol pumps for this purpose. Hydrogen is delivered almost daily by tanker semi-trailers. And Everfuel says: ‘Not only are we building the refuelling station, we can also take over the supply of hydrogen to the refuelling station.’ Incidentally, ‘green’ hydrogen is refuelled. And around 3,600 kilograms of hydrogen are consumed per week.
The refuelling station was built in eight months; the ‘Nächstebreck hydrogen refuelling station’ project took a total of two years from initial planning to handover to WSW. WSW CEO Hilkenbach: ‘The investment in the hydrogen infrastructure at our depot is an investment in an emission-free future. In this way, we are driving forward the transition to an environmentally friendly and future-proof organisation of local public transport.’
Why hydrogen buses?
In order to initially reduce pollutant emissions from the operation of buses and ultimately no longer release any pollutants into the environment at all, Wuppertal also wants to run its buses electrically in the future. Many transport companies are currently focussing on battery buses. Not so Wuppertal, where they are focussing on buses with fuel cells. It makes no difference to the environment; both battery and hydrogen buses run on electricity and do not release any pollutants. So why did Wuppertal decide in favour of the hydrogen bus? WSW CEO Markus Hilkenbach: ‘For a city with Wuppertal’s topography, the fuel cell bus is much more suitable. This is simply because it can recuperate electricity better than a battery bus. And as we have a lot of (steep) gradients in the city, we want to utilise the opportunities for recuperation as much as possible.’
It should also be added that the hydrogen bus is currently making its debut at many transport companies, especially in North Rhine-Westphalia. These include Bielefeld (with buses with fuel cells from Mercedes – UTM reported) as well as Duisburg, Essen (UTM will be reporting from both cities shortly) and Krefeld, where Solaris vehicles are being used everywhere. In the chemical industry in the Ruhr region, hydrogen is a by-product, so to speak … and it can be utilised magnificently in local public transport buses.
The demonstration run
To round off the presentation of the new fuel cell buses, WSW organised a demonstration trip in one of the new Solaris Urbino 18 hydrogen articulated buses. From the Nächstebreck depot, the bus first went up the hill towards the neighbouring town of Sprockhövel, from there on a moderate incline towards Gevelsberg, from there to Wuppertal-Langerfeld and then back up the hill to the Nächstebreck depot. Uphill, downhill: the bus showed what it was made of. Uphill it went quickly, no sign of the articulated bus having to exert itself. Downhill: the buffer batteries were filled with recovered electricity. Driving is very smooth and very quiet.
