Sourcing Finance – Covering the costs

Challenges

Best Practice Solutions

Knowledge of Funding Sources and Interaction with Funders:

• Knowing and connecting possible funding sources
• Convincing funders
• Timeliness
• Making sure that interactions between different sources of funding do not interfere with each other
• Weaving purchase of new buses into routine fleet investment

Politics:

• Changes in/uncertainty regarding the political situation/agenda
• Competition from other zero-emission buses (BEBs)

• Research funding sources well and ensures their criteria (goals/timelines/limits) align with your project; read the terms and conditions of grant funding thoroughly and seek legal support to do so
• Sources generally include a component of investment from the PTO, or the PTA allocated to normal purchases; useful additional sources are government (all levels) low/zero-emission and energy programmes
• Connect with funders informally or find good intermediaries or experts

• Present a thorough business case to show that you are serious about your project
• Service funders well; never assume reliable, lasting commitment
• Consider working with another site to seek funds jointly;
• Consider employing experts to seek & prepare funding proposals

• Be aware there may be issues that arise:

• from providing subsidies to private organisations (e.g. PTOs)
• about the ownership of assets purchased with funder input and
• in trying to coordinate with the investment cycle of PTOs

• Try to separate funding sources into separate sub-projects but also try to avoid feeding funds from different sources into the one item (e.g. source 1 = FCBs, source 2 = HRS, rather than sources 1 and 2 = FCBs, sources 3 and 4 = HRS)
• Consider LCC to estimate the avoided external costs via savings of emissions of GHG, NOx and particulate matter and strengthen your case;  there is information available to help quantify external costs (see Table 2‑3)