Water management technology for implementing a water culture for bus operators

Transit operators’ concerns about water as a resource are minimal. No standards and policies to manage water in washing operations are available, which are accomplished according to local practice. This paper moves from here and presents a cost-benefit scenario assessment, where an innovative water reclamation and harvesting technology, for the bus sector, is applied to washing operations within the European Commission’s LIFEH2OBUS project. The theoretical approach behind (coherent with consolidated methodologies applied in transportation studies developed within past European research projects) is to assess performance trends and impacts (associated with several evaluation categories such as society, environment, operations, and energy) by scenario building and via cost-benefit and sensitivity analyses, also including the design of performance threshold to successfully implement the innovative technology outside the LIFEH2OBUS project. The scenario highlights a 92% reduction in water consumption after one year of implementation, i.e., 21,528,000 liters saved for a fleet of 500 buses. By reaching 50% of the European transit fleet in 5 years (342,143 buses), 14,731,309,008 liters/year can be saved, along with a 29 GWh/year reduction of energy consumption and 74 ktCO2eq/year fewer greenhouse gas emissions. The research goal is to evidence water saving potential and pioneer a new study field on water management, thus launching a new “Water Culture” among bus operators.