Promoting bus electrification through policy mechanisms: a case study in large cities in Brazil

Ambient air pollution is one of the main global health risks, causing significant excess mortality and loss of life expectancy LLE, especially through cardiovascular diseases.Diesel burning produces air pollutants such as carbon monoxide (CO), NOx, benzene, sufur oxides (SOx), 1,3-butadiene and primary particulate matter PM10. These pollutants increase the incidence of bronchitis, asthma, and pneumonia for at-risk populations, especially in large cities.The objective of this paper is to propose a new policy mechanisms approach to promote lithium battery buses in large cities in Brazil. Public health, together with global emissions, makes this substitution an important issue to be addressed by policymakers. This project showed that capital costs and infra-structure development, also techno-economic and market-control policies are the best options to promote electric battery and charging infrastructure development. Manaus was the only city that doesn’t need policy incentives for the next life cycle to promote electric buses. Brasilia, Salvador and Fortaleza needed a useful life standard policy to become feasible. Furthermore, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte needed the useful life and State and Federal tax reduction as policy mechanism to become feasible.