Dozens of zero-emission electric buses ordered by the National Transport Authority (NTA) 18 months ago are not yet in service, partly due to delays in installing charging infrastructure at two Dublin bus depots.
The NTA ordered 120 electric buses in June 2022, as part of a framework to provide 800 zero-emission buses for Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann over five years. Of the 120 buses ordered, 100 were for Dublin Bus and 20 were for Bus Éireann.
Speaking in June 2022, at the launch of a key part of the plan to decarbonise the country's public transport fleet, Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan said: "This is the future, electrifying everything in transport, cutting out the carbon."
Although the first electric double-decker buses to be added to the national fleet are not yet in service, the NTA told Prime Time that ten of the electric buses ordered in June 2022 are now being used for test and training purposes in Dublin.
According to Sean Murtagh from Fleet Transport Magazine, the buses ordered in 2022 had been delivered with "no infrastructure to charge them".
"The difficulty is that it looks like they've run into planning problems with the infrastructure for the charging mechanism. But it does seem a bit ridiculous that we have 120 buses sitting there that can't be used at the moment," Mr Murtagh said.
Issues with obtaining planning permission for the charging infrastructure at the Phibsborough and Summerhill bus depots delayed the NTA and Dublin Bus installing them.
The National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) has said bus garages should be exempt from such planning regulations.
"From a common-sense approach, if it is a climate emergency, one would have assumed that when they ordered the electric vehicles they would have exempted the bus garages from planning permission to get these vehicles on the road as quick as possible," said the NBRU’s Assistant General Secretary Tom O'Connor.
"But they didn't do that. There didn't seem to be coordinated thinking," Mr O’Conor said.
The NTA said the charging system for the Summerhill Bus Depot will come on stream this month and for the Phibsborough bus depot in December.
"Together they will provide charging for a minimum of 136 electric buses," the NTA told Prime Time.
The NTA also said the first electric buses are due to be delivered to Limerick for testing and training later this month.
Before the buses could be registered, the vehicle manufacturer had to provide certification following vehicle testing and approval, which also partially added to the delay.
"The registration process for the first of these 100 double-deck buses was completed in June 2023," the NTA said.
According to Mr Murtagh, most people across the passenger and freight transport industries are fully committed to decarbonisation.
However, he said the biggest problem is that across Europe, there are between seven and nine million trucks and buses.
"If you tried to convert that many into electric or into the infrastructure, it would be almost impossible to put in place in the timeframe that governments wish to do it," he said.
However, other European cities have been able to almost fully electrify their bus transport systems.
"In Norway, we have gone far faster than anyone had expected," Petter Haugneland from the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association told Prime Time.
"In Oslo, the capital, by the end of this year, 100% of the buses will be fully electric. And that's something that no one would expected," Mr Haugneland said at the Electric Vehicle summit in Dublin.
Mr Haugneland said it "quite surprising and even shocking" that there are so few electric buses in service in Ireland.
In light of recent storms and flooding in Cork and Louth, and the delays in building charging infrastructure for electric buses, Mr O’Connor from the NBRU said bus garages need to be exempt from planning regulations.
"If this is such a climate emergency, why are we tying ourselves up in red tape and bureaucracy," he said.
Watch reporter Conor McMorrow and producer Lucinda Glynn’s report about electric buses on 7 November at 9.35pm on Prime Time on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.
