Oslo

Oslo as a CHIC partner

Within CHIC Ruter will operate 5 Van Hool FC buses. Oslo’s will operate them for up to 24,000 hrs in 5 years. Air Liquide Norway will build a Hydrogen fuelling station for operation at the bus garage of the fuel cell buses.

Ruter is the Public Transport Executive for the City of Oslo (a county) and the surrounding county of Akershus with more than 1 million inhabitants. Ruter is responsible for planning, procurement and marketing of public transport. In 2009 Ruter had a ridership of 252 million passengers.

The transport operations are performed by various operators in accordance with their contracts with Ruter. The contracts for the operation of bus routes and ferries are awarded based on competitive tendering.  The Fuel cell buses will be operated by Unibuss AS on behalf of Ruter.

Ruter has an environmental strategy of moving towards zero use of fossil fuels and reductions in local air pollution and noise. Ruter’s public transport includes emission-free electric trains, metro and trams.

Ruter has the objective to make all public transport environmentally friendly. Ruter has taken the first step to convert its buses from fossil fuel operation to environmentally friendly biofuels, and has one route operating with 95 % bioethanol and one route with biogas from July 2010. Ruter vil also operate biogas buses and dieslehybrid buses from the same garage as the hydrogen buses when the new contract starts in October 2011. Ruter also uses biodiesel.