Legal, technical and financial feasibility of electric mobility at the Budapest Airport

Abstract

This study seeks to make recommendations to the Budapest Airport on the deployment of various types of electric vehicles (EVs), setting up their charging infrastructure within the Airport premises and analyse financial feasibility. The study looks at the legal and strategic aspects of EV integration into the airport transport systems and concludes the positive financial and communication benefits of electric mobility projects. Followed this, there is a simplified analysis of the existing network, compared to other airport's demand profiles and recommended three possible connection points for EV charging station installation. The calculation part of the work covers the investigation of existing car-types and user habits for conventional vehicles. Followed the analysis of BUD's fleet management data, three main user types has been identified and matched with three various EV types, namely light electric vehicles with lead-acid batteries, pure electric cars with modern battery technology and the most independent plug-in hybrid vehicles. Assuming same driving distances as in the past, calculations has been made both for investing and operating a small, pilot fleet of mixed EV car types. Result shows that a change in the fleet configuration, dominated by light electric vehicles for ramp agents and mixed vehicles for internal-drives added by plug-in vehicles for regular city-drives can both serve all work processes and provide security for any distance occurring at the daily work of the airport. Beside the screening of the technical possibilities the study also calculates the financial implications of various EV fleet compositions as well as considers CO2 emission reductions for each cases.