The study, carried out with support from the Lighthouse industry program for maritime research between IVL and KTH, was conducted to assess how a transition to fossil-free public transport on water can be accelerated. By remodeling and converting todays vehicles to run on electricity it appears possible to carry out a large part of the current public transport on water without today’s high greenhouse gas emissions.
Calculations shows that switching to fossil-free alternatives does not affect the cost of traffic for short distance operations. The major costs can be found in the form of personnel etc. Which means that focus, in order, to reduce total cost should rather be on the design of the vessel, procurement and to work with crewing than to save on transitioning the fleet for fossil-free operations.
Cooperation is also a major tangible that needs to be imbedded in the structure of transitioning to fossil-free public transportation. Since there are many parties with interests in the conversion it’s imperative that all are included in the process. Click here to read the whole study.