Making our cities greener, healthier, and more liveable: over the past five years, the ASSURED project has worked towards achieving this goal. On 21 March 2022, UITP held a final conference in Brussels to bring to a close the major EU initiative, which aimed to boost the large-scale uptake of electric vehicles in cities.
With a strong focus on electric buses, ASSURED has delivered key innovations that enable the optimisation of fleet operation: alongside interoperability and standardisation of e-bus charging through high power fast charging solutions, the project investigated intelligent tools for smart charging and energy storage systems. Other elements explored within the project were how to improve grid stability to ensure a secure energy supply, essential for future uses when a larger number of vehicles will rely on the charging infrastructure.
One major result of the project is the ASSURED 1.0 Interoperability Reference, a document enabling interoperability and conformance testing by operators, authorities, and manufacturers, until standardisation as set by the EU is fully finalised. The first document launched in 2019: an update, the ASSURED Interoperability Reference 1.1, was published this month following results from project demos held across Europe.
The ASSURED Clean Bus Report
Created through the valuable collaboration with fellow EU-initiatives JIVE and the Clean Bus Europe Platform, the ASSURED Clean Bus report is another major milestone delivered by the project.
This new publication provides an updated overview of the European market for clean buses and compares clean vehicle figures of 2017 and 2021. The report highlights the major progress our sector has made in terms of the electrification of public transport, showing the commitment of cities and operators to contribute to a more sustainable world.