Bus life cycle assessment¶
carculator_bus estimates the energy use, emissions, costs and life cycle
impacts of city buses and coaches. You choose the vehicle type, size, year, load and
operating conditions. The model calculates the vehicle’s mass and energy demand,
then combines them with production, energy-supply and end-of-life inventories.
The results describe a vehicle under the assumptions you supply. A size class represents a generic vehicle; it is not a digital copy of a particular make or model. Future inputs and energy scenarios are assumptions about possible futures, not predictions guaranteed to occur.
The original methodology is described in [Romain and others, 2021]. Later changes are documented in the guides and changelog.
Start here¶
Installation explains the Python environment and package versions.
Usage walks through a complete calculation with 2025 inputs.
Understanding inputs and results explains units, abbreviations and how to read results.
Validation examples: what the comparisons show shows comparisons with evidence and explains what each comparison can establish.
For equations and sources, see Modeling. For the detailed checks and remaining limitations, see Bus calibration and validation. Older figures and parameter tables in the methodology chapter describe their original studies; they are labelled as historical where they do not describe current defaults.
Shared physics, electricity and fuel assumptions, impact coefficients and export
writers come from carculator_utils. Core calculations use bundled data and
do not need an installed ecoinvent database or Brightway project. Exporting to
another LCA tool requires compatible background data there; see
Inventory export with Brightpath.