Environmental life cycle assessment of alternative fuels for city buses: A case study in Oujda city, Morocco

The road transport sector, particularly public transport, generates significant greenhouse gas emissions due to the excessive use of petroleum-based fuels. The use of alternative fuels with lower environmental impacts is therefore a major challenge to move towards a more sustainable public transport sector. In this context, the current study presents an environmental life cycle assessment of alternative buses, including hybrid (diesel-electricity), electric, and fuel cell buses at a city level in Oujda, Morocco. This study is perfromed according to three main outputs: total energy use by fuel type, GHG emissions, and criteria air pollutants. It is concluded that electric and fuel cell buses represent efficient and sustainable alternatives to public transport during the operational phase and their deployment in Oujda city can potentially offer significant environmental savings in terms of GHG emissions and air pollutants during both the WTT and TTW phases.