School traffic? Cross-country routes? And in a thinly populated region? These hardly sound like perfect conditions for using electric buses. Stefan Lösel thinks otherwise: “Using electric buses is ideal wherever there is typical school transport in rural areas.” The Managing Director of Verkehrsgesellschaft Ludwigslust-Parchim mbH (VLP) relies entirely on the eCitaro from Mercedes-Benz – and with great success.

Lösel is firmly convinced that the eCitaro is destined for regular service in the countryside. Crucially, the Ludwigslust-Parchim district in which the VLP eCitaro buses operate is a rural area. Germany’s second largest district is in the south of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. With 223,500 residents, the population density is only 45 per square kilometre and is spread over a large number of quite small towns. With this demographic and the large size of the route network, the range requirements for electric buses are high.

Stefan Lösel guides us through the depot in Hagenow, where 33 VLP buses are based. In all, the vehicle fleet covers an impressive 13 operating locations. They serve 172 routes in the district, including an on-demand bus service with around 50 million scheduled kilometres per year. 45 out of the total of 200 buses are eCitaro buses. This means that almost a quarter of the fleet is electrified.

School transport is central to the VLP bus service. For this service, the Inter Star Eco seats in the eCitaro electric buses have also been equipped with two-point seat belts. During the journey, passengers can use the WLAN on board or charge their mobile devices using USB sockets. “Mercedes-Benz has built things never seen before in the eCitaro into our buses,” says Stefan Lösel, delighted with this tailor-made equipment. The vehicles are likewise highly appreciated by his bus drivers: “Our drivers now prefer to drive with electricity than with diesel.”

Here in northern Germany, most of this electricity is generated from renewable energy sources, primarily wind and solar energy of course. “Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was the first federal state already in 2013 to be able to cover its electricity needs from renewable energies on the balance sheet,” says Lösel. Due to the slow expansion of the grid, the fluctuating supply of renewable energies means that some plants have to be temporarily shut down, with corresponding payments to compensate the operators. “This in turn results in high electricity prices and a financial burden for consumers on the local distribution grid.”

This is where the VLP electric buses come into play. Sector coupling is the magic word, i.e. the fusion between the energy and transport sectors. This is because the electric buses are an ideal in situ customer for the regionally produced electricity from wind power. “We have the wind and solar farms here and with the eCitaro, the electricity can be utilised in situ,” says Lösel. According to the VLP Managing Director, from this point of view electric mobility can be implemented even better in the countryside than in the city.

Route scheduling at VLP is thus characterised by typical school transport, as we have found in other regions of Germany. In terms of the vehicle use for the eCitaro, for VLP this means: around 90 kilometres in the morning, then a three to four-hour break, then another 130 kilometres in the afternoon. The buses travel at an average speed of 40 km/h, with an average distance of three kilometres between stops. “Bus transport in the countryside,” says Lösel with a laugh.

Lösel is an environmental engineer by training, who by his own admission has turned into an “power economy geek” on the topic of electric buses. “The eCitaro buses are charged at night and late in the morning between the two peak periods,” he explains. This allows VLP to take advantage of the times of day when it is cheap to buy electricity from renewable sources. Moreover, peaks in solar power and wind generation can be used and energy can be bought at correspondingly low prices. The charging slot of several hours also allows low charging capacities, which has a positive impact on the battery lifetime. The large number of decentralised depots now also makes sense because the electric buses have short arrival and departure times and thus enough time remains for charging and preconditioning.

VLP also uses OMNIplus ON services for fleet management. With the Data Package plus interface, bus companies have access to standard FMS data for the eCitaro and receive additional operating and deployment information. In this way, professional analyses of all important vehicle data can be carried out and the deployment and charging of the electric buses can be planned and controlled optimally. Deployment planning and complex depot management have been developed in close collaboration with the Daimler Buses cooperation partner IVU. All this together makes it possible to charge the eCitaro optimally and to send it out in the best condition.

The result? At VLP, the eCitaro buses not only offer enjoyable driving, but with the well thought-out deployment concept they also prove that they can be used on regional bus routes without any problems. And that's not all: Electric buses can also save money. “If you implement optimal electricity procurement on the energy market and combine it with THG quota trading, you can even achieve a negative electricity price,” explains Stefan Lösel. Stefan Lösel has calculated that the TCO at VLP - taking into account the subsidies - is currently less than the cost of a diesel bus. “Electric buses in cross-country transport are a normal business,” Stefan Lösel is convinced and therefore advises: “Make the change now!”