Success story of Lighthouse City Tartu: New biogas buses made 12 million trips last year

“Unlike our earlier diesel-powered vehicles, the new gas buses also keep the environment cleaner,” remarked Ramses Riive, the regional manager of South Estonia at Go Bus. “Compared to earlier, our buses emitted 2000 tons of less CO₂.” Last year, the 64 buses used 2 million kg of biomethane or green gas.

 According to Raimond Tamm, the Deputy Mayor of Tartu, the switch to gas buses has been very important considering the air quality of the city. Using biomethane, which is a carbon neutral fuel, instead of natural gas, has helped to decrease the environmental impact of public transport in Tartu considerably. Mr Tamm said, “Switching from diesel-powered buses has fully justified itself and it helps achieve our environmental and climate change goals. It is important to us that the gas our buses use is produced from local agricultural waste at Ilmatsalu biogas plant as this is in line with our circular economy goals.” He added that using biomethane ensures a stable fuel price and so-called green jobs as well.

 The green gas used in Tartu public transport is made of waste and does not use any valuable agricultural resources. The amount of waste is increasing but producing biomethane from it lowers the impact on the environment. Using biomethane as a carbon neutral fuel in public transport is in line with the city’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

 Go Bus has been operating Tartu city bus transport since 1 July 2019. Switching to environmentally friendly public transport is one of the goal’s of the city in the SmartEnCity project.