QBUzz proudly provides bus and train services in the Utrecht region. With more than 1.100 employees, 318 buses and 27 trams, QBUzz make sure their clients will safely reach their destination in the Utrecht region: Utrecht City, Bunnik, De Bilt, Houten, IJsselstein, Nieuwegein, Stichtse Vecht, Vianen and Zeist. QBUzz provides daily transport to 110.000 commuters.
Together with the municipality QBUzz has the ambition to electrify public transport by the year 2023. The first 13 electric busses are arriving in Utrecht in May 2017. Sustainability is not limited to our busses and trams only, but also involves all other business activities. For example: energy production with solar panels, anticipation of second life batteries, water recycling installation (bus washing) and our facilities are fully provided by LED lighting.
Monitoring of our three electric busses has proven that the bus schedules can be upgraded to a higher level of reliability with better charging schedules. The need to monitor electric busses is particularly high, because there are more variables that influence the daily performance of our busses than in case of combustion motor busses. Especially the bus charging infrastructure plays an important role in this variability. Therefore not only the busses, but also the charging infrastructure needs to be monitored, in order to have optimal algorithms for charging and discharging, also using massive solar power and in the future second life batteries for temporary power storage. The energy monitoring tools are not yet proven technology and need further demonstration. That is the main reason that we are eager to participate in the IRIS project.