Diffusion of Electric Busses for Public Transportation : A Case Study in Three Indian Municipalities

Sammanfattning: INTRODUCTION: In India, internal combustion (IC) engines are the main concern, due to the exhaustion of natural fossil fuelled buses. These are the three major factors which is considered as an urgency to find an alternate solution. First, the energy and emission trends from transports. Second, efficient urban infrastructures, such as mass transit system. Third, the policies to adopt the cleaner and efficient technologies such as electric vehicles and other available alternate fuels. This made the Indian government to think about adopting electric vehicles as a mode of public transportation. PURPOSE: By initiating the use of electric buses this thesis will assist the three state transport corporations in India who are willing to initiate use of electric bus by overcoming their barriers. Furthermore, this research will be an implication for automotive industries in India towards their diffusion of electric buses. FRAMEWORK: Electric buses usage has been a major part of this diffusion process where it helped the authors to analyse how important it is. Adding to this the different perceived attributes of innovation from Rogers model has been analysed in this research to find out the different factors affecting towards the diffusion of electric buses. METHODOLOGY: This study uses the case study method to study the diffusion of electric buses in three municipalities. Primary data has been gathered through semi-structured interviews with representatives from the municipalities and suppliers. In Addition, secondary data, such as press releases from the municipalities and suppliers, has been collected CONCLUSION: It is been concluded that the adoption of electric buses is one of the major solution which will help the country carbon emission rate to go low with the technicalities involved in the electric buses. In addition to that if the private and municipality transports plan to expand their fleet of electric buses, complexity and nature of social system are the one of the major attributes which should be considered initially during the diffusion of electric buses. LIMITATIONS: This research has a limit in the role of internal organisation (Government or Companies) of the municipalities, supplier’s business model, policy related issues between the municipality and the government has not been analysed. All these limitations in turn is a future research for the further researchers.