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European national, regional, and local authorities have started to take action to make public bus transport services more effective and less polluting. Some see the possibility to move beyond a narrow focus on efficiency or carbon dioxide reductions towards an integrated sustainability perspective. This paper uses this perspective to build and test a new assessment approach that should enhance decisions on bus transport powertrains and energy carriers for Swedish medium-sized cities. The study suggests that a superiority of electric powertrains is revealed if a traditional economic analysis is integrated with a strategic sustainability perspective.

European national, regional, and local authorities have started to take action to make public bus transport services more effective and less polluting. Some see the possibility to move beyond a narrow focus on efficiency or carbon dioxide reductions towards an integrated sustainability perspective. This paper uses this perspective to build and test a new assessment approach that should enhance decisions on bus transport powertrains and energy carriers for Swedish medium-sized cities. The study suggests that a superiority of electric powertrains is revealed if a traditional economic analysis is integrated with a strategic sustainability perspective.