Water as a pivotal resource for the environmentally conscious management of bus fleets in Europe

There is not much interest in the transport sector, specifically among transit operators, on the potential achievable from improving water management as consolidated garage practice. Bus washing operations are highly water and energy-demanding, but this seems to go unnoticed, being operators' primary concern on pollution and energy. However, proper water management can improve the sustainability of the transit fleets, as the European Commission's LIFEH2OBUS project is slated to demonstrate. The paper describes the water-saving technologies to be tested in the project, i.e., water reclamation; water reclamation and harvesting; waxing without water, and provides tangible, quantitative facts on reducing water consumption when washing buses in terms of water, energy and monetary savings, according to a cost-benefit analysis simulating the implementation of the three technologies in three different bus garages in Europe. All of the above, with the research goal to launch a new “Water Culture” among transit operators and advance scientific knowledge further afield.