Last week Jan Vandooren from Volvo Buses visited ITDP's Guangzhou office and the Guangzhou BRT, and he gave a brief overview of some recent developments. A trend in Europe is a move toward electric buses, with 2015 marking Volvo Buses' first full electric bus in operation and their cessation of diesel bus production for the European market. Hybrid buses are seen as eventually being superseded by electric hybrid buses (which can use zone management to automatically switch to electric operation in certain locations without driver action), and in the long term by full electric buses. Developments such as the charging technology being trialled in Goteburg (see photos below) and improvements in electric buses generally bring into question the future of the tram.

Buses have great advantages compared to trams in cost and flexibility of operation. In Europe it is already common to see high quality buses operating in tram roadways. Some Chinese cities, including early champion Shanghai, are now shelving tram expansion plans due to the high cost and the inevitably limited demand following from the inability of trams to operate outside the tramway infrastructure. High quality buses on the other hand are much cheaper, and do not require dedicated infrastructure along the route.

Despite the advances in charging and battery performance, though, cost remains a primary barrier for more widespread adoption of electric buses. The Yinlong full electric buses shown below cost around 1.2 to 2 million yuan based on information from a meeting with provincial officials in February 2015 (the 'retro' style bus is a niche tourist application and is more costly), compared to a CNG bus cost of around 500,000 yuan. Adoption of electric buses in China, for example, is fully dependent on generous government subsidies and even including any possible lower lifecycle and fuel costs, until the electric bus costs are more competitive with CNG, LPG or high quality diesel buses, they will remain a relatively niche application. Still, while the future for electric buses seems bright, the same cannot be said for trams.