E-Bus Network Planning — 50+ Routes Capacity Study (India)

Context

• Client: City transport authority and OEM JV

• Geography: India (60 cities, multi-city)

• Objective: Conduct an in-depth EV bus opportunity analysis by assessing demand, traffic volumes, occupancy, fares, and competing modes to identify the most commercially and operationally viable corridors for electrification.

Scope of work (delivered)

1. Route baselines: Exhaustively mapped buses plying across major corridors (to & fro), including fleet size, trip frequency, seat utilization, and passenger load factors. Each route was studied across weekdays vs weekends, seasonal peaks, and special events.

2. Demand profiling: Tracked daily ridership patterns, peak hour surges, and fare sensitivity. Peak days (festival, office-commute days, inter-city rush) were layered in to understand variations in demand intensity.

3. Competitive modes: Counted and compared daily traffic across buses, trains, flights, taxis, autos, and private vehicles on overlapping routes. Estimated the extent to which passengers could shift from conventional modes to EV buses, factoring in cost, convenience, and time.

4. Revenue streams: Collected data on fare structures, operator margins, and cargo earnings from bus operators (luggage, parcels, courier consignments). Built comparative revenue models across passenger and cargo streams.

5. Opportunity mapping: Synthesized findings to highlight “sweet-spot” corridors where EV buses would offer high ridership capture, competitive pricing, operational feasibility, and ancillary revenue opportunities.

6. Adoption pathway: Developed recommendations for the client to strategically target specific routes, design pilot initiatives, engage operators, and scale deployments in phases.

Method & sources

• Data: Ticket sales, operator ledgers, GPS traces of buses, multimodal traffic counts, and cargo manifests.

• Primary: On-ground commuter surveys, structured interviews with bus drivers and conductors, and detailed discussions with transport operators across 60 cities.

• Models: Corridor scoring models, substitution potential calculators (rail/air/road), EV adoption economics, and scenario-based demand forecasts.

Deliverables

• Comprehensive route demand book: Priority corridor lists with occupancy, pricing, cargo earnings, and multimodal competition benchmarks.

• Competitive mode analysis: Dashboards showing where EV buses can displace rail, road, or air passengers most effectively.

• Opportunity scorecards: City-wise route viability matrices with demand, economics, and feasibility layers.

• Deployment roadmap: Phased EV bus rollout plan (pilot + 12–24 month scaling) with operator partnership models, funding options, and stop-gate criteria.

Illustrations