From H2020 research to political initiatives: the "factor 100" campaign of the ELIPTIC project

ELIPTIC is a Horizon 2020 research project on ‘electrification of public transport in cities’ – and one of the very few H2020 projects coordinated by a municipality – the City of Bremen. The “factor 1002” campaign compares impacts of e-buses and e-cars - showing that the electrification of an 18m bus for urban operation has impacts that match about 100 e-cars. Whereas there are many funding programmes for electric cars, there was nothing for electric buses equivalent to their impacts. The “factor 100” campaign has been presented at various national events and events of the European Commission. In May 2017, the German Ministers for Environment of all states and the federal level met (“Umweltministerkonferenz”), discussed and adopted a political initiative for a funding programme for electric buses. The successful political initiative was launched by the City of Bremen. In August 2017, the German government announced a €100 million funding programme for electric buses – as part of a strategy to reduce the NO2 problems in German cities.