From cow power to sunshine rails: the world’s greenest public transport
Forget traffic jams and smoky motorways. Journey through a world where buses run on waste, trains are fuelled by sunshine, and cows are the ultimate green energy heroes.
You’re stuck in traffic, breathing in the exhaust fumes of hundreds of idling car engines, and wondering why life has come to a standstill. Sound familiar?
Now picture hopping on a train powered by sunshine or a bus fuelled by yesterday’s dinner leftovers. Welcome to the extraordinary world of green public transport.
Once upon a time, in a world plagued by honking horns and gridlocked motorways, a glimmer of hope emerged from the unlikeliest of places: public transport. Not the boring, stuffy kind. Oh no. This is a tale of ingenuity, where green energy meets imagination, and the result is nothing short of extraordinary.
And as London reveals its first pantograph charging buses, we explore the most innovative (and quirky) green public transport systems tackling the transport travails in different ways.
1. Malmö’s buses: powered by your dinner scraps
In Malmö, Sweden, buses don’t guzzle petrol, instead, they sip on biogas — fuel made from food waste and other organic materials. Leftovers are used to create a circular system, scraps are collected, turned into fuel, and the nutrient-rich remains are sent back to farms as fertiliser.
The results? Cleaner air, quieter streets, and a 25% boost in passenger numbers. Malmö proves that when buses eat sustainably, cities breathe easier.
2. Braking bad in Bavaria: trams that recycle energy
In Ulm, Germany, the electric trams do more than move passengers – they recycle energy. Using regenerative braking, they convert the kinetic energy of a screeching halt into electricity.
This means every time a tram stops, it creates power that fuels the next ride.
3. Linköping’s moo-ving train
In Sweden, cows aren’t just barnyard residents – they’re fuel providers! Linköping’s commuter trains run on biogas derived from cow manure.
Thirty cows can power a train for 75 miles, turning Sweden’s picturesque countryside into a showcase of sustainable ingenuity. The town even runs its buses and taxis on this methane magic, proving that the future of transport could really be… udderly sustainable.
4. Sunny side up: Byron Bay’s solar train
On the sun-soaked coast of Australia, Byron Bay’s train glides along powered entirely by solar energy. With solar panels on its roof and at the station, even the brakes contribute by feeding energy back into the batteries.
Excess power goes to the local grid, making this train a community win on every sunny day – which happens to be quite often!
5. Hydrogen heroes: Germany’s emission-free train
Alstom’s Coradia iLint is rewriting the future of rail travel. Running entirely on hydrogen fuel cells, it emits nothing but water vapour.
With a range of 1,000 kilometres on a single tank, it’s sleek, quiet, and perfect for non-electrified tracks, proving that long-distance travel can be both green and practical.
6. London’s buses: power to (and from) the people
In the UK, London’s iconic red buses are embracing cutting-edge Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology. These buses don’t just take energy from the grid — they give it back, helping balance supply and demand during peak times.
In fact, if the entire London bus fleet adopted V2G tech, it could power more than 150,000 homes!