The Ticket to Kyoto project is a good canvas to test and initiate new practices and techniques from which all partners can benefit … even many years after the project has ended. Thanks to the welcome support of the European Union, the five partners are able to perform these investments, the good results of which might convince other public transport companies to use these practices themselves in order to save energy.

Towards new investments
By comparing methods and sharing analyses the partners can initiate new investments to decrease the CO₂ emissions of their infrastructures. The results of each partner will be useful for all partners and for the public transport sector as a whole. After the experimentation phase, the ex-post studies will help to decide which investments will be put into practice on a wider scale.

60% of the budget
No less than 60% of the Ticket to Kyoto budget – around €7,2 million – will be dedicated to these investments. All investments will be scrutinized in feasibility studies and economic evaluations before they are implemented. The post-implementation studies will help to evaluate the outcome of the investment to inform further schemes outside the Ticket to Kyoto project.

The investments focus on four energy saving methods. All partners will invest in a different experiment or technique.

1. Braking energy recovery
When vehicles decelerate, usually an important amount of kinetic energy is lost in heat and burnt in braking resistors. Power recovery techniques can be exploited to recover this energy and use it for future accelerations or send it back to the electricity grid. During the project the STIB, moBiel, RET and TfGM will invest in pilot installations to be put on the tram and metro networks, on board or alongside the tracks. If the results turn out to be positive, these energy storage/recovery systems will be implemented on a broader scale – larger than the project itself.

Click for the studies and results of this sub-workpackage 

» Braking Energy Recovery: How does it work

2. Energy saving in stations and infrastructures  
Nowadays, most metro networks in the world are lit in full capacity - night and day, even when the metro network is closed and only the maintenance teams are present. This is for security reasons and due to a lack of light reduction or dimmer systems. During the project, the STIB, moBiel, RET and the RATP will install new lighting and information devices to lower the electricity need substantially. moBiel will build more efficient heating installations to keep the points of the track at working temperature in winter time and with solutions to control energy consumption of the elevators.

3. Heat recovery
Train engines and metros produce a lot of warm air. Most of the time this energy is lost for re-use. The RATP will start a project in which part of a building or rooms in a new station will be heated by the warm air of a nearby metro line. They will also invest in heating pumps and water circuits to make use of the energy produced by the underground water temperature.

4. Producing power locally
The partners will try to produce a large part of their buildings’ electricity needs locally. tfGM will use on-site wind- or waterpower for two of its important terminal stations. For example: in Manchester the power of a waterfall will be used to produce electricity for a near-by bus station. In one of her big sites, the STIB will combine the production of heat and electricity in a single high efficiency energy plant – a technique known as cogeneration. There will also be a study on the use of small-scale wind turbines in urban areas. moBiel will also renew an existing tram station into a zero-emission one.

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