The carbon footprint of passengers on line 185 which connects Paris (Porte d'Italie station) to the city of Choisy-le-Roi (Choisy-Sud station) will drop sharply in the coming months.
In order to increase its knowledge of hydrogen, the RATP is starting a first series of tests with a hydrogen bus on Monday, October 19.
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This vehicle, built in collaboration with Solaris and Air Liquide, will be tested for two months, with a phase providing for experimentation under real operating conditions with passenger transport.
The bus will be hosted in the center of Thiais, in the Val-de-Marne and will be recharged at the Air Liquide station in Loges-en-Josas, located about twenty kilometers away.
“
Hydrogen is a major issue for the years to come.
Through this experimentation, we continue to be at the forefront of the energy transition by testing new energies,
”explains Marie-Claude Dupuis, Deputy Director of the RATP group in charge of strategy, innovation and development.
RATP is looking for alternatives to reduce the carbon footprint of its fleet of buses that travel daily in Île-de-France.
“
The advanced hydrogen technology could become one of the solutions leading to environmentally friendly public transport and the inhabitants of contemporary cities,
” explains Petros Spinaris, Deputy CEO of the Polish group Solaris, the vehicle manufacturer.
For this, the operator of the Ile-de-France network has also decided to call on one of the giants of the sector, the French group Air Liquide, which “
controls the entire hydrogen supply and distribution chain
” according to Pierre -Etienne Franc, director of the latter's global hydrogen energy activity.
"For us it is the technology of the future"
The RATP and Île-de-France Mobilités, the Syndicat des transports d'Île-de-France - the organizing authority for Île-de-France transport - foresee a 50% reduction in the carbon footprint as part of the Bus 2025 plan. of the 4,700 buses operated by RATP.
Some vehicles already run on environmentally friendly fuels: 142 run on electricity, 240 run on natural gas and 1,100 are hybrid vehicles.
Île-de-France Mobilités is not in its first test campaign since two buses, manufactured by the Belgian manufacturer Van Hool and operated by the Savac group, already circulate between Versailles and Jouy-en-Josas, one of which has been running for more than one year (September 2019).
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In an article published by the energy industry Laurent Probst, the director of Île-de-France Mobilités already mentioned the ecological potential of hydrogen.
“
The advantage of the hydrogen bus is that there is no battery.
The batteries are very long recharges
[up to 5 hours, note]
and it pollutes.
So we want to use more and more this green fuel, hydrogen, which can be produced in a completely ecological way, by hydrolysis of water.
For us, it is the technology of the future,
”he said at the time.
