Key progress during the 6th period of the project includes:
- By the 6th, and final, reporting period, all 131 of the project buses were delivered to the sites and started operations.
- As of 31st March 2024, the JIVE buses travelled a total of 9,757,858 kilometres over the lifetime of the project. Cumulatively across both JIVE and JIVE 2, nearly 19m kilometres have been travelled.
- As of 31st March 2024, specific fuel consumption of the JIVE buses continued to be, on average, below the project’s <9 kg/100km target, falling in a range between 6.1 kg/100km and 9.1 kg/100km.
- Building on the successes of the previous two roadshows hosted in JIVE 2, a 3rd Roadshow was organised under the JIVE project and successfully held from May to June 2024 in the Southern European region. The Roadshow included demonstration trials, national and regional workshops, and included stops in 9 cities across Romania, Greece, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Bulgaria. The Caetano FCB travelled 3,000 kilometres across a variety of terrains. This Roadshow showcased transport applications of fuel cell technology in regions where interest has grown since the commencement of the JIVE project. After the Roadshow, the national coordinators in each country produced a report analysing performance data, identifying key lessons learned, and the impact of the Roadshow on regional FCB demand. In addition, a public report will be disseminated from the project summarizing key learnings, recommendations, and outcomes. The Roadshow was successful in generating interest, with some municipalities making concrete plans to issue tenders for FCBs and committing to further national investment. As a direct result of the Roadshow, several representatives from the cities involved became engaged with the JIVE project. The geographic and experiential breadth of the JIVE and JIVE 2 consortiums have both been improved by these follow-up activities.
- The JIVE project was centrally featured during the Zero Emission Bus (ZEB) Conference held in Brussels from 9th to 12th October 2023. The conference was organized through the JIVE 2 project; however, the learnings, best practices, and key outputs from the JIVE project represented an important part of the conversations. Several JIVE partners participated in the moderated discussions, bringing their experience from the project to discuss topics including data analysis, principles of HRS infrastructure, the business model of FCBs, and the FCB ecosystem. Outside of these sessions, the JIVE project was promoted in the official ZEB brochure, which was distributed to over 400 participants, and on multiple social media channels which reached a very high level of public engagement during the conference.
- The Final Performance Assessment Report (D3.16 - confidential), prepared by the performance data analysis partners, was submitted to the Clean Hydrogen Partnership. The report provides an overview of the performance metrics for the FCBs and HRSs across the JIVE and JIVE 2 projects up to December 2023.
- The project’s final Best Practice Report (D3.26) was finalised. The report presents a fictional ‘perfect world’ case study, which draws from the learnings and experiences of real-world sites from the project, to highlight the most effective practices for implementing FCBs. The deliverable was communicated on the project’s social media and website and a complementary knowledge brief is under preparation by UITP. This document will present in a more concise way the key messages of the deliverable and will be widely disseminated to reach stakeholders interested in deploying FCBs.
- To support operators interested in adopting FCBs, Sphera and PLANET prepared and submitted a Best Practice Guide for FCB Maintenance Workshops (D3.34). The guide compiles knowledge gained from the JIVE projects, technical information based on real world experiences, and broader best practice to provide usable directions for overcoming the initial complexity of implementing a fuel cell bus project.
- New tasks were finalised during this period. This includes the report “Fuel Cell Bus Deployment in the UK – Lessons from JIVE and Next Steps” (D3.35) which covers the outputs from a workshop session with the UK sites focused on identifying the lessons learned in the JIVE project and remaining challenges to the commercialization of fuel cell technology in the UK. ERM also undertook an analysis of European passenger bus schedules across a range of topographical archetypes (D3.36 – “The potential for hydrogen buses in Europe: Results from the bulk analysis of passenger schedules”) to identify the regions with the greatest potential for the future uptake of hydrogen transport platforms. Both reports are available on the fuelcellbus website.
- The JIVE User Group continued to convene during the period and took advantage of the project’s dissemination activities to expand its membership. Three User Group meetings were held in P6: the 7th JIVE UG meeting (Birmingham-Coventry, UK) in conjunction with the Clean Bus Europe Platform (CBEP) Study Tour and the UITP Bus Committee; the 8th UG Meeting (Brussels, Belgium) alongside the Zero Emission Bus Conference; and the 9th UG meeting (London, UK) immediately prior to the final JIVE General Assembly, including several new members following the 3rd Roadshow.
- The membership of the User Group grew during the period, particularly with new members with connections to the 3rd Southern European Roadshow. This has greatly expanded the geographic breadth of the discussions, as well as further stimulated the uptake of FCBs in the region. The User Group activities will be pursued in the JIVE 2 project.
- To capitalize on both project partners’ experience and resources, key JIVE activities continued to be aligned with the JIVE 2 project during this period. Dissemination on joint activities was coordinated, as well as regularly scheduled consortium meetings to maximize knowledge sharing and cross-partner collaboration.
- As the JIVE project concluded, deployment sites continued to determine their next steps for post-project activities.
See Tech. Report (Part B) for full publishable summary and further details.
