1. Brief introduction

    Beijing Orbo Consulting Co. LTD cooperating with Beijing Tsinghua Industrial R&D Institute got a commission from the national PMO to investigate the awareness of fuel cell bus among Beijing public in May 2005. The initiative survey report was completed.

    The main proposes of the survey were to investigate Beijing public awareness and understanding of fuel cell bus and related technology, through collecting and analyzing the data to contribute to GEF-UNDP project and clean transport implementation. In addition, this survey introduced and disseminated the knowledge of FCB and technology for the public. The investigation was divided into two parts, one for the survey of Beijing public awareness of fuel cell bus, the other for the survey of energy, environmental and transport consciousness among Beijing public.

    The investigators designed several sites in every zone in range of Beijing eight zones to visit the passengers randomly in the street. Total 400 awareness questionnaires were disseminated, in parallel 349 questionnaires were answered. In addition, total 210 energy consciousness questionnaires were dispensed, in parallel 204 questionnaires were replied. Thus the effectiveness was 87.3% and 97.1% respectively.

    The interviewee in the investigation differed from the whole public, especially in education and age aspects. The Investigation occurred at weekday and bus stops instead of in residential areas. Thus the working staff accounted for most percent of the interviewee who were general 21-40 years old with high education. Thus this survey was appropriately considered as a consultative report of awareness of FCB among partly Beijing public instead of the whole people.

    2. Beijing public opinions on transport

    There was 36.5% of Beijing people preferring to taking bus as the primary choose when they travel, 7.9% of people chose to take underground. It showed that peoples’ daily life related to public transport tightly. However, the percentage of people who did not satisfy the current transport condition definitely accounted for 28.9% in the investigation; the number of people unsatisfied with the transport reached 54.4%. The data presented that the current transport, as a primary part of people life, could not meet people expectation at the moment.

    3. Energy consciousness among Beijing public

    According to the survey, 19.6% of the interviewee took large attention on China energy problem; 41.2% of interviewee was interested in this problem. The number explained that Beijing public had strong energy consciousness. In addition, the answer of how to deal with China energy problem varied as the following: 55.9% of the interviewee supported to research and develop new energy especially hydrogen energy, nuclear energy, wind energy and sun energy etc; 23.5% of people suggested to save energy use; the number of supporting to develop clean coal technology, increase petrol and natural gas outputs and cooperate to develop petrol and natural gas were quite low, respectively 9.3%, 7.8% and 3.4%.

Figure 1: The opinions of solving China energy problem among Beijing public

    4. Environmental consciousness among Beijing public

    Beijing environmental quality and ecological condition were restricted by large consumption of energy, rapid increasing in vehicle number and water shortness etc. How about the environmental protection awareness among the public? There were 24.5% of interviewee said that they took care of the issue; 53.9% of interviewee normally focused on it. On the contrary, only 9.3% and 1.5% of interviewee said that they do not really care nor never think about the problem. Through the data, we can realize that general Beijing public had strong environmental consciousness and high expectation for Beijing environmental quality.

    5. Awareness and acceptation of FCB and relevant technology among Beijing public

    The questions in the survey included water molecular formula, hydrogen battery, lithium battery etc professor names. The interviewee‘s answer showed that Beijing public had basic knowledge of understanding and acceptation of fuel cell bus. Regarding the FCB advantages, environmental friendly and energy efficiency attracted people’s attention significantly.

    To evaluate the meaning of demonstration for FCB project in Beijing, the survey gave four chooses: significant, important, meaningful, no meaningful. 28.1% of the interviewee considered it as a significant issue; 29.8% of people chose it was important; 39.5% of people thought it was meaningful; only 2.6% of interviewee chose unmeaning. Corresponding to the result, most people understood the issues value and supported it.

    Although the inaccuracy of interviewee differed from Beijing whole public diminished its effectiveness, the survey still could be considered as a valuable reference. Beijing public had strong capability of understanding and acceptation of FCB based on the results. Environmental pollution and energy leakage attracted people attention already. The public gave high appraisement for this project, considering it would improve the commercialization of environmental friendly public transport in China cities.