At a time when Quebec transport companies could reduce their service offering, experts are questioning the tight deadlines imposed by the Quebec government to electrify the fleet of urban buses that crisscross the province’s cities. A costly project whose environmental benefits will be mixed, they warn.
In an article published this summer in the scientific journal Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environmentfour researchers from Concordia University and another from Polytechnique Montréal attempted to measure the impact that achieving the electrification targets for buses of public transit companies in Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton and Halifax would have in 2030 on the greenhouse gas emissions of these cities.
In each of them, government authorities have set ambitious targets for the electrification of the buses of their public transport companies. Halifax, for example, plans to electrify more than half of its buses by 2028, while Montreal, Toronto and Edmonton are aiming for a fully electric bus fleet by 2040. From 2025, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), when it has to replace a vehicle, will have to acquire only electric buses in order to respect the objective set by the Quebec government of a fleet comprising 55% electric urban buses in 2030.
“The reason why we conducted this research is that electrification in the transport sector is considered one of the most important paths to take to reduce GHGs in this sector,” explains the main author of this research, doctoral student Xuelin Tian. By taking into account both the energy source used to produce electricity in each of these cities and the different electrification targets put forward by them, the researchers were able to evaluate the reduction at which wait until 2030 for the quantity of greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted by urban bus fleets. This decrease compared to 2019 should reach 18.7% for the Toronto bus fleet and 30.1% in Montreal, the researchers estimate.
Race against time
“Transport companies are in over their head with electrification,” notes the general director of the Quebec Urban Transport Association (ATUQ), Marc-André Varin. However, new electric buses are arriving slowly in the province. “At the moment, these are small quantities; we are in technical test projects,” specifies Mr. Varin, who recalls that electric buses remain a “new technology”.
To date, more than fifty electric buses have been deployed in the fleets of public transport companies in the province, “which represents an electrification rate of 1.4% across Quebec », Indicates the Ministry of Transport of Quebec (MTQ), which is “staying the course” on its 2030 target.
“With the projection I have at the moment, we will be at 42% [d’autobus électriques] in 2030. If we want to get to 55%, we will have to accelerate infrastructure projects,” says the general director of the ATUQ.
A high bill
In addition to acquiring new electric buses, transportation companies must renovate and build new garages equipped to charge and maintain these vehicles. To cover these costs, the Legault government released the sum of five billion in 2021 to achieve its 2030 target for bus electrification. The final bill could, however, reach 7.2 billion, foresees Polytechnique Montréal researcher Brigitte Bouchard-Milord. The latter was based on the details of a 2.1 billion contract won by the company Nova Bus in May 2023 for the construction of up to 1,229 electric buses in order to arrive at this estimate.
This “considerable” sum, notes the researcher, represents almost all of the approximately 8 billion dollars planned for the Electrification and Climate Change Fund since 2013. However, the electrification of 55% of the city’s urban bus fleet Quebec will only reduce the province’s overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 0.3%, noted Mme Milord at the end of research that the Mobility Chair of Polytechnique Montréal carried out on behalf of the ATUQ. The contribution of this measure to Quebec’s target of reducing its gas emissions by 37.5% by 2030 will therefore be marginal, concludes M.me Bouchard-Milord.
Climatic changes
In order to effectively combat climate change, the Legault government would benefit from investing more in the supply and frequency of public transport rather than in its electrification, analyzes Catherine Morency, professor specializing in urban mobility at Polytechnique. Montreal.
“If we increase the service, we will have many more environmental gains, because from the moment we put more people on the bus network, we reduce greenhouse gas emissions”, by reducing the recourse to the solo car, notes Mme Morency. Conversely, “cutting service” risks reducing public transport ridership and, in turn, increasing road congestion, warns the expert. “If we take everyone off public transit because the service becomes bad, it will be a disaster. »
If we multiply the service, we will have many more environmental gains
In recent weeks, several transport companies, including the STM, have said they fear having to reduce their service offering due to the lack of funding offered by Quebec to help them absorb their deficit. A particular context which requires us to question the significant expenditures of the Quebec government to electrify the buses of the province’s transport companies, notes Florence Junca-Adenot, professor at UQAM and specialist in public transport. “There’s no point in having electric buses if we cut the service and the buses are empty,” says the expert.
The head of transport at the Montreal Regional Environmental Council, Blaise Rémillard, believes that the financing of public transport and its electrification must be seen as complementary issues, since electric buses make it possible to reduce operating costs by compared to traditional diesel buses. “We arrive with little reduction in greenhouse gases [en électrifiant les bus]but with long-term savings,” continues Mr. Rémillard.
“We have to do both,” says the general director of the STM, Marie-Claude Léonard, who refuses to oppose the financing of public transport to its electrification. “We must not finance electrification to the detriment of the supply of services and we cannot finance the supply of services to the detriment of electrification,” added Ms.me Léonard, met on the sidelines of a media event in Montreal on October 30. In 2024, however, the STM does not expect to have the means to improve its service offering, she conceded.
The MTQ, for its part, recalls that it set itself the objective, in 2018, of increasing the public transport offering in the province by 5% annually. “In normal times, the Ministry believes that this strategy of investing in parallel in the electrification of the bus fleet and in increasing the service offering would have made it possible to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions” , argues the MTQ. However, the pandemic has “slowed down” the achievement of this last objective, affirms the Ministry.
With Jeanne Corriveau
This content is produced in collaboration with Concordia University.