Basel’s electric bus project is so cool
- May 22, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Apr 21
I love Basel for many reasons, high among them its top-notch public transport system. The city has an excellent network of trains, trams, and buses that runs in Switzerland, France, and Germany, which puts almost any city of similar size to shame - Basel only has around 500,000 regional residents. As a kid, this well-oiled network enthralled me, so much so that I made a career out of urban and transport planning. I continue to draw inspiration from my hometown, and over the past few years, a quiet change in Basel has given me reason to smile.
Going full electric
Basel is transitioning to a fully electric bus fleet.
That may not sound like much, but Basel will likely become one of the first cities in the world to achieve this milestone. Hundreds of cities are deploying more electric buses, but to my knowledge, no major city outside of China has successfully shifted to an entirely electric bus fleet. Basel isn’t a big city, but the execution of a full transition to clean-powered public transport ahead of others is something to celebrate.
Basel began the process of transitioning its diesel buses to an electric fleet in 2018. Around that time, the city’s transit authority, the BVB, committed to running a completely zero-emission public transport system by 2027. Basel’s trams were already electric, and almost all Swiss electricity comes from emissions-free sources, which meant that this zero-emissions effort was all about buses. BVB began the transition quickly by conducting a short study to determine what kind of zero-emission bus technology was best. BVB assessed hydrogen buses, overhead wire trolley buses, and battery buses, and ultimately selected battery electric buses for their environmental benefits and operational flexibility.
BVB then quickly ordered and began testing a few battery-electric buses in 2019. Things went well, and the organisation ordered 65 electric buses from Hess and Daimler in 2021, replacing roughly half the diesel fleet. These went into service throughout 2022 and 2023. BVB will finish the procurement process this year by ordering another 61 electric buses, which should enter service in 2027. When all is said and done, Basel will be operating about 130 e-buses, saving 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per year - roughly the equivalent of removing 3,500 cars from the road.
Technical Challenges
Transitioning from diesel to electric buses sounds straightforward, but in practice, it seems to be tricky. Diesel buses are reliable workhorses that have been in use for a hundred years. We’ve refined them to near perfection in terms of range, reliability, and durability. By contrast, e-buses are a relatively new technology that come with some uncertainties. Battery performance, and therefore bus range, varies based on air temperature and battery age. Maintenance practices have to change and sometimes bus depots have to be renovated to add charging infrastructure. Many electric bus models still seem to have quality control issues.
Going electric also presents new operational challenges. Charging electric buses generally takes longer than filling up a gas tank. Even though progress is being made in speeding up charging times, particularly in China, recharging vehicle batteries usually requires at least 30 minutes, and often hours, to reach a full charge. Unlike personal electric vehicles though, buses in a busy city don’t have much idle time to charge - they need to be moving almost constantly for most of the day.
These challenges have held back e-bus transition efforts in other cities, and I frequently see Canadian transit planners expressing regret about attempts to do so. E-buses in Canada and elsewhere, it seems, are less reliable and more difficult for operators to adapt to. Basel though, is not facing these challenges, which is why its project interests me so much.
Basel’s choices seem to be paying off
1. High Quality Buses
Basel’s e-bus transition is going well in part because Basel has simply procured high-quality e-buses. The three different models of Hess and Daimler buses now in operation feel top-notch and cost roughly 1 to 1.5 million CHF each. They've even got nice wooden floors! The shorter buses have respectable ranges of 150 to 250 kilometres and charge using 300 kilowatt power. The large bi-articulated buses serving the airport have a shorter range of 40 to 100 kilometres and charge using 450 kilowatts. This range is pretty short, but Basel has compensated for range issues in its choice of charging system.
2. Rapid Chargers
One solution to the problem of e-buses with a short operating range would be to buy more buses and swap them in and out of service for charging. This requires more buses and garage space, and is therefore expensive. For this reason, a lot of cities, including Basel, try to employ some on-route rapid charging. Rapid chargers, sometimes called opportunity chargers, are deployed along a bus route to provide a short, higher voltage charge during revenue service. Buses still charge overnight at a garage, but rapid chargers help extend the range of larger buses and reduce the overall need for buses. In Basel’s case, the use of rapid charging allows it to operate large buses all day, and meant that 9 fewer buses were needed overall, compared to a scenario in which buses were only charged at depots and swapped into service. Interestingly, Basel has indicated that as soon as battery technology advances, the city will remove all installed rapid chargers.
Images: BVB & sustainable-bus.com
3. Best-in-class Storage
As part of its electric transition, Basel’s BVB has opted to rebuild its main bus storage garage. The old facility was outdated and capacity-constrained, and needed to be retrofitted to incorporate electric charging and maintenance infrastructure. Beginning in June 2024, the old garage was demolished and its replacement is now under construction. Impressively, this single new garage will accommodate the entire bus fleet of around 130 buses on 4 levels, with the provision to add another floor to accommodate more buses in future. Even more impressively, BVB was able to come up with quick-build provisional storage locations for its bus fleet during this construction process: one at an old industrial site and one inside one of the city’s main exhibition halls, normally used for major events like Art Basel. Both of these provisional storage facilities were built in less than a year and feature overhead electric charging for the e-buses as well as fuelling and maintenance facilities for the remaining diesel buses. When the new garage opens in mid-2027, it will feature some nice bells and whistles, including rooftop solar, underground employee parking, and space for a residential tower.
Images: Itten&Brechbühl AG, BVB
Takeaways
Beyond being cool to someone like me, Basel’s e-bus transition project offers lessons for the hundreds of other bus operators attempting to go green.
Test out the technology, then go for it
Basel ran short tests of a handful of e-buses back in 2019 to determine whether it was ready to move forward with a larger order to truly replace its diesel fleet. These allowed the city to learn enough about the operation of e-buses and to get comfortable with the models it later ordered.
Expand in stages, but have a clear timeline
BVB’s two-phased expansion programme, in which they ordered half of the electric fleet in 2021 and the second half in 2025, has allowed it to continue to test the implementation of e-buses but crucially, the City and BVB have stuck to their 2027 target and not allowed testing to slow the pursuit of a full transition.
Use rapid chargers
Deploying a handful of rapid chargers has allowed the BVB to run larger e-buses without real range concerns, and saves about 600.000 CHF annually in ‘empty trips’ where buses would otherwise have to return to a garage for charging. These also help keep e-buses going in winter, when battery performance diminishes, and should probably be a standard part of any e-bus operation in colder climates.
Plan for the future
Recognising that the future is unpredictable, Basel has planned both for the scaling up and scaling down of elements of its new electric bus fleet. Rapid chargers are ready to be removed if advancements in battery technology make them unnecessary, and the new e-bus garage is ready to be expanded in future. These forward-looking investments cost a little more now, but help avoid even bigger costs down the road.
On top of all the technical learning I’ve tried to pull out of this case study, what Basel has done with its bus network is just plain cool. It’s so uplifting to see a public institution execute an ambitious goal that benefits everyone. And as a Basler, I feel proud that my small, quiet city continues to pursue and achieve excellence.
