The eFöli project, which is funded by the City of Turku and TEKES (the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation) transforms the bus line number 1 of Turku region public transport to operate with electric vehicles. For this purpose, the City of Turku has invited tenders and will purchase 6 electric buses from the Finnish company Linkker Oy. During rush hours, the vehicle circulation will be complemented with traditional, diesel-driven buses.

The pilot line will provide research and empirical data in the operational environment of the City of Turku on how the number of electric buses should be increased in the future, which lines they are suitable for and what is the total and life cycle cost of this kind of traffic, stock and charging solutions.

The study aims to find answers for the following questions:
What is the effective, materialized energy consumption of electric buses in different conditions and their impact on carbon dioxide emissions?

• How can data collected from the buses, charging systems and open web interfaces be combined as technical material which benefits the future stock solutions of the municipal public transport? 
• How can the training of drivers, optimizing the driving and technologies which assist the driver influence energy consumption?
• What are the technical and operative bottlenecks in the establishment and expansion of electric bus traffic in the Turku region and how can they be removed?
• What is the reliability and effective operating costs of electric buses in relation to diesel vehicles?