Today is Westfalentag, as people in Lower Saxony like to call the public holiday “Allerheiligen” in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the shopping streets in Osnabrück are once again very busy.

Thanks to the city’s particularly climate-friendly bus transport operated by Stadtwerke Osnabrück, public transport fans can still enjoy a quiet November 1, 2025. From today, Osnabrück reports an e-bus share of 94%, making the city of around 166,000 inhabitants one of the leading cities in Germany in this field.

• 62 fully electric articulated buses are already in operation.
• Now 19 solo buses are being added and will enter service on November 1, 2025.

The articulated buses cover 3.6 million emission-free kilometers per year, avoiding around 2,100 tons of CO₂ annually. The new solo buses will further contribute to these savings.

The launch of the solo buses in Osnabrück was officially marked by (in the image, from left) Tanja Stiegeler, Thomas Neuhaus (both SWO Mobil), and city planner Thimo Weitemeier.

The project is funded under the “Directive for the Promotion of Alternative Bus Drives in Passenger Transport” with a total of 5.17 million euros by the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport Affairs (BMDV). Funding is also provided via the European Recovery and Resilience Facility (ARF) under the NextGenerationEU programme. In addition, the project is co-financed by the federal state of Lower Saxony.