To address the adverse consequences of vehicular pollution in cities, push towards public transportation is considered as a key strategy to sustainable transport system. Indian cities are witnessing a push towards adopting cleaner modes of public transportation, especially electric vehicles to reduce vehicular emissions. The Government of India has launched schemes such as Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicle (FAME-I and FAME-II) to shift towards electric vehicles. However, a shift from Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) buses to electric buses requires a comprehensive understanding and capacity building of different stakeholder groups to ensure a smooth transition.
Under the bilateral technical cooperation project ‘Integrated Sustainable Urban Transport Systems for Smart Cities (SMART-SUT)’ commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and jointly implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Government of India, GIZ undertook a comprehensive study on ‘Training Needs Assessment for Electric Buses in India’ and published detailed reports identifying e-bus related training needs in Public Transport Associations (PTAs) across e-Bus life cycle functions, various departments and hierarchies. The comprehensive detailed study found that there is an urgent need to plan and organise a national-level e-bus training and capacity building programme to overcome the identified skill gaps and build capacity across PTAs systematically.
The E-Bus UpSchool programme, implemented by UITP and supported by GIZ India, is a capacity building programme organised at national level to address the training needs for increasing uptake of electric buses in India. The training programme is further facilitated by Green Urban Mobility Partnership, and Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI) in the form of knowledge partner.
The capacity building programme is targeted towards public and private bus operators of India such as state transport undertakings, municipal transport departments, and special purpose vehicles, original equipment manufacturers, state and central ministries and other professional from organisations involved in growth story of electric buses in India. The programme will enable participants to provide comprehensive overview of electromobility worldwide, understand global and local e-mobility issues, analyse and discuss the latest trends in e-buses sector, and provide an opportunity to brainstorm solutions to improve the strategy for electrification of public transport.
Spanning over a duration of three months, the programme will have 32 interactive online sessions with presentations, interactive training sessions from course leaders, and open discussion with participants. The skilful and diverse trainers which includes international experts, domestic experts and professionals from public transport operators, authorities, OEMs, and consultants with extensive experience and knowledge in the domain of electric bus mobility will provide a unique exchange of knowledge and discussion for electrification of public bus transport.
The programme entails seven modules – one fundamental module and six elective modules. The fundamental module focuses on fundamentals of electric bus and is compulsory to attend for the participants. The elective modules constitute operations planning and implementation, monitoring and control, financial planning and strategy, repair and maintenance, safety and technology and end of life scrapping and recycling. The participants can select up to three elective courses from six elective courses available under the programme. The training programme will also include two virtual study tours to the cities that are already operating electric buses.
At the larger level, the programme aims to help Indian cities prepare for future energy transition to clean and green energy, enable decarbonisation in public transportation sector and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of climate change.
The participation in the training programme is through registration and final shortlisting by the organising partners. For more details on the training programme and registration details, please refer to the weblink: https://www.uitp.org/trainings/e-bus-upschool-capacity-building-programme-for-leaders-of-electric-buses/.