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How Big Things Get Done Estimating Makes Mississauga’s Hydrogen Buses Expensive
City could get twice the number of battery electric buses for its planned trial
Recently I published a perspective on the Canadian city of Mississauga’s plan to pilot hydrogen buses for their transit system. It included global data on the high cost and low reliability of hydrogen electrolysis and refueling systems and the high cost and low reliability of hydrogen fuel cell buses. Someone asked the next obvious question: how much money are we talking about, and who would be getting it?
Follow the money, and in this case it’s up to $36 million, far more than the costs of purchasing and operating electric buses for equivalent service. (All dollar values in this article are in Canadian currency unless stated otherwise.)
Let’s start with methodology. I’m a strong proponent of Professor Bent Flyvbjerg’s reference class forecasting approach to estimating the costs of projects. This is outlined in his best selling book with Dan Gardner from 2023, How Big Things Get Done. The methodology is simple:
- Get as much data on costs and duration on historical projects similar to the one proposed as possible
- Take the averages of costs and duration
