1-Discussion and review of scenarios:

1-1 First set of scenario matrix

Technological effect

(High importance)

Scenario 1 Scenario 2

High development of bus Medium development of bus

propulsion technologies propulsion technologies

Environmental effect Environmental effect

(Low importance) Scenario 4 (High importance)

Scenario 3
NO development of bus Very low development of bus
propulsion technologies propulsion technologies

Technological effect

(Low importance)

In this matrix of scenarios, there are two main effective leading variables, Technological
effects, and environmental effect. The combination of these two decision forces will lead
to four scenarios, high, low, medium and no development in the propulsion technologies
of buses. Here we can see that the main concern of technological effect is the powering
method of the bus. The powering method could be achieved using many sources such as,
Diesel, Natural gas, hybrid-electric technology, battery electric propulsion and hydrogen
fuel cell. However, each type of powering method has a benefits and disadvantages, and
according to the economical decision, the selection of powering type would be affected
greatly. For example, if the developers are going to select Diesel, they would face the crisis
of high oil price in the next approaching years due to the un stable situation of world
economic. For environmental effect, the environmental regulations here will hold the
development of bus propulsion technologies due to the environmental regulation.
However, this effect will catch only the technological development of diesel and natural
gas engines as a source of power. Other Powering sources would not have affected by these
environmental regulations such as, hybrid and battery systems. In the first scenario, the
technological effect will be more important than environmental effect. So, the development
here of the propulsion system in this scenario will be high, as the environmental regulations

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 will not prevent the usage of diesel or natural gas engines as much as possible, and
eventually there will be not any case of problem to develop the other types of powering
systems. For the second scenario, the importance of the environmental effect will be high
and the importance of technology will be high. But here, the environmental regulations will
prevent the development in diesel and natural gas engines as in The Kyoto Protocol, which
is an amendment to the United Nations international treaty on global warming, which
proposes the participating countries to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide in1997.
However, there is no any detailed direction to countries for specific regulations of carbon
dioxide and other emissions for each country, the governments started to effect on
technology development and improve fuel economy to reduce the automotive emissions
based on Kyoto Protocol. In the third scenario, the importance of both environmental and
technology effect will be low. Thus, the development of the propulsion system will not
exist. This is may occur if the importance of technology development is considered as
uncertain factor. In the fourth scenario, the environmental effect will be high and the
technology effect will be low, and thus the development in propulsion technology will be
very low or even could not exist.

1-2 Second set of scenario matrix

Social effect

(High importance)

Scenario 1 Scenario 2

Medium development of bus LOW development of bus

propulsion technologies propulsion technologies

Economical effect Economical effect

(Low importance) Scenario 4 (High importance)

Scenario 3
NO development of bus Very low development of
propulsion technologies bus propulsion technologies

Social effect

(Low importance)

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In this matrix of scenarios, there are two main effective leading variables, economic effects,
and social effect. The combination of these two decision forces will lead to four scenarios,
high, low, medium and no development in the propulsion technologies of buses. In the first
scenario. The social effect will be high and the economic effect will be Medium. This will
lead to medium development of the propulsion systems. This is because the social forces
will affect the development according to many factors, such as culture of the people to use
buses and regional diversity. For example, For the second scenario, the social effect will
be high and the economic effect will be high. And this will lead to a low development in
the prolusion of buses. This is because the economic force has a big effect on this
development. For example, if the developers are going to select Diesel, they would face
the crisis of high oil price in the next approaching years due to the un stable situation of
world economic. Also, the taxation factor is a leading cause of this kind of economic effect.
For example, if we are going to look about the maintenance cost of different technologies
for all powering propulsion systems, it will be found that all these systems will have
medium to high operation and maintenance costs. Due to different types of propulsion,
maintenance costs are not same. In addition, for the same propulsion buses, the service
time would cause different maintenance cost, which means that some propulsion buses
have large costs at in initial period, however, these propulsion buses may have less
maintenance costs in the later stage. Generally, compared with above propulsion buses, the
largest maintenance costs are diesel buses. however, high costs of diesel bus cannot be the
standards for developers and users due to the various developing expenditure. For
instance, although fuel cell bus has minimal maintenance cost, fuel cell propulsion is an
emerging technology, which may cause much expenditure in the duration of development.
In addition, bus age is a significant parameter to influence maintenance costs, which may
lead to larger influence than the factor of different propulsion. Maintenance costs are the
significant parameter to evaluate and estimate propulsions during the development of new
bus propulsion technology, which may provide effective information to developers
whether the propulsion can be applied extensively. Moreover, maintenance costs are based
on production costs which are easily predicted. Thus, maintenance costs are certain during
future operation.

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1-3 Comparison between the two sets of scenarios and critical
uncertainties

It could be found that there are no critical differences between these two matrices of
scenarios. However, there is a nominal effect of some forces that would affect the final
development of the propulsion system of buses, such as economical force effect and
environmental effect.
The first important uncertainty is if the manufactures can develop the propulsion system of
the buses or not, and if there an appropriate fund for this development available by
developers. Firstly, the technique of STEEP will be used to define these uncertainties.
Recently, from the previous study of these two set of scenario matrix, there are many
obstacles that would face the manufacturer and developer. First, the social forces are an
important driving force, because this factor will greatly affect the stream of the
development in the technology. The social effect is related also to the economic effect, as
the economic situation of people greatly affect the questionnaire about the need of the
public transportation or not, especially bus transportation. Because if the economic
situation of a specific country is very well, hence people will aim to buy private
transportation vehicles instead of sing of public transportations. And thus, the development
here in the bus technology will not be feasible. On the other hand, if the economic situation
of a specific country is not good. Hence, people will tend to use the public transportation.
For example, For political forces of the STEEP analysis, this factor could be varied from
country to another country, As the bad political situations to affect the economic situation
of the technology development in industry. This could be reached to the level at which
funding agency became afraid from this bad economic situation, and thus will not fund the
development in many projects. However, the good political situations will make the
economic level of country to be at higher attitude, and thus more fund agency will be
available to fund these kinds of projects. A SWAT analysis also would be used to review
the first critical uncertainties which was the ability of the manufactures to develop the
propulsion system of the buses or not, and if there an appropriate fund for this development
available by developers. The strengths here would be obtained from the fabulous economic
situation of the country, weakness could be obtained from the restrictions of the
environmental regulations or even from the social factors. On the other hand, opportunities

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could be obtained technology development in other regions, that would give a high
evidence for the ability to apply this development. Eventually, threads would be obtained
from some minor economic forces as Taxation, which could be a real threat to the
development of that technology especially in regions where high taxation would be found,
such as in London.

The second critical uncertainty is if the technology of the renewable energy that would be
able to develop that kind of propulsion engines for buses. By using STEEP analysis, Social
forces would affect this kind of critical uncertainty. By the meaning, the ability of people
to change their culture about the sources of renewable energies that could be used in their
life and its effect on their health and country development, and if the culture of people is
good, the ability to develop this kind of renewable energies will be enhanced and thus
would be used in most of technology development. Furthermore, fund agencies could
encourage this kind of development according to the fabulous statistical referendum. The
technological effect would be such a good strength here, because the technology of
renewable energy is taking the most trend of research studies nowadays, thus the
development of propulsion technology for buses will not has a problem at this level. For
environmental force, it will be a great and perfect strength in this situation, because the
development of such renewable energies is aiming in the first place to make a more clean
and healthy environment. For the political force, the industry of renewable energy that
would use to develop propulsion system of buses will be affected by the level of political
system. If the level of political system is not a satisfactory manner, the economic level will
be being the same, and thus no funds would be found to develop these kinds of technology.
The challenge is even greater when trying to predict what technologies might be available
or in widespread use in the future and to predict the effectiveness and costs of those
technologies. So, if SOWAT analysis is used for the second uncertainty, the strength here
would be power and imperfections for renewable energies as a fabulous energy source in
future, and there will be not any problems at this level. For weakness, there will not be any
disadvantage here except in the high cost of using renewable energy as a factor to develop
the propulsion system of the buses. For the opportunities, there will be high opportunity to
get funds for these kinds of projects. For Threats, there will be some issues to develop the
use of the renewable energy at large scale

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