Piloting Electric Buses in Addis Ababa’s Bus Rapid Transit System

Addis Ababa is rapidly urbanizing doubling in size every decade since the 1980s. Despite the City’s relatively low motorization rate; rapid economic growth has led to increasing rates of vehicle registrations. Today, transport comprises 68% of the City’s total emissions the major share of which is from on-road transport. The vehicle fleet in Addis Ababa is characterized by old and inefficient vehicles. The C40 City Solutions Platform (CSP) and the Addis Ababa Transport Bureau are collaborating with a number of solution providers and partners to co-create innovative and feasible ideas to implement a pilot on a defined Bus Rapid Transit corridor in the city. The end goal is to facilitate and mobilize resources and technologies to procure and deploy an electric bus pilot for the city of Addis Ababa. 

Join a two day online workshop to co-create solutions for Addis Ababa on the 10th – 11th November. To keep up to date with the pilot programme developments and register to the co-creation workshop, please sign-up to our free online collaboration platform and join a community of like-minded innovators in the Addis Ababa project space. 

Project Scope

The challenge is to build a consortium of relevant stakeholders to develop solutions for the introduction of battery-electric buses for Addis Ababa’s BRT in order to curb growing greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and public health risks.

The challenge will center around three pivotal questions:

1. How to deploy and design a small-scale electric bus pilot, including the needed charging infrastructure and any necessary accessories, to raise awareness and gain confidence in the technology

2. How to evaluate which BRT corridors (out of the 15 planned) are most suited for the sustainable operation of an electric bus and what technical and finance elements are needed to make a widespread roll-out of e-buses in the system viable over the long- term?

3. How to engage the community and relevant stake holders in the electric bus project, and sustain their involvement?