City: Brussels – the capital of Belgium and the European Union, a home to NATO’s headquarters and multiple European and international institutions. The bustling city plays a role of political and administrative centre, attracting diplomats, politicians and civil servants from all over the world. The polyglot population of the metropolitan area of Brussels has already reached 1.8 million.
Public transport in Brussels: Public transport in Brussels offers metro, bus and tram services.
In the project: The ELIPTIC activities in Brussels are led by STIB with support of VUB.
ELIPTIC use cases in Brussels:
Pillar A - Progressive electrification of hybrid bus network, using existing tram and metro infrastructure
The local operator, STIB, with the support of VUB, studies the options for the actual supply of electric energy from its own electric grid to charge diesel-electric hybrid buses. The study aims to identify the most promising technical solutions based on state-of-the-art review in order to determine robust configurations of infrastructure (type and location of charging stations), equipment (type and capacity of on-board electric storage and operations (impact on service planning).
Pillar B - Optimised braking energy recovery in light rail network
STIB modelled and evaluated strategies for optimal assimilation by the electric grid of braking energy recovered by underground trains. Within ELIPTIC, STIB transposes the successful approach to its light rail network as to make optimal use of modern light rail vehicles’ energy recovery ability. The Use Case Team identifies the sections of the network with the greatest potential for braking energy recovery based on needed energy (dependent on topography, vehicle speeds and loads) and network configuration.