Last week, the ElectriCity project launched its viral campaign “Silent Bus Sessions”. In the campaign, the Swedish artists Zara Larsson and Seinabo Sey perform acoustic concerts in front of unsuspecting passengers on the new electric bus route in Gothenburg, Sweden. The videos have become a viral success and are expected to reach 2.5 million views on Thursday.
The ElectriCity campaign “Silent Bus Sessions” already received publicity during its recordings, when two of Sweden’s hottest artists performed on one of the buses on Gothenburg’s new electric bus route.
The campaign was launched last week with the release of four music videos. So far, the campaign has reached more than 2.3 million viewers and interest has been global, with news stories in Germany, Brazil, Japan and the US.
“With this campaign, we have been able to reach the general public and communicate one of the benefits of electric buses – the silence on board. The music videos have received a lot of attention, especially on social media. It is great to see that the interest for sustainable public transport is so big”, says Niklas Gustafsson, Chief Sustainability Officer, Volvo Group.
The most shared video so far has been Seinabo Sey’s hit song “Younger”. Zara Larsson’s brand new song “Better You” has also attracted a lot of attention with half a million views in total.
“’Younger’ is a fantastic song that many have heard before and this version is a little bit special. ‘Better You’ is brand new material from one of Sweden’s hottest artists,” says Helena Lind, Manager Media Relations at Volvo Buses.
ElectriCity, the collaboration behind the new electric bus route, works to promote sustainable and attractive public transport, and the aim of the campaign is to draw attention to Gothenburg’s new silent electric buses.
The campaign in figures:
Views on Facebook: 2 million
Shares on Facebook: 13 000
Views on Youtube: 371 000
Press articles: +100
About ElectriCity
ElectriCity is a collaborative project between academics, industry and the public sector and is aimed at developing, demonstrating and evaluating new sustainable public transport systems for the future. Testing and evaluation of electric bus transport is a central part of ElectriCity. Silent, emission-free public transport can operate in places where traffic is currently banned. This opens up new possibilities for urban planning in towns and cities.
The three electric buses run on renewable electricity and are energy-efficient, silent and completely emission-free. The buses run on batteries that are quickly recharged with renewable electricity at the terminal bus stops. Passengers have access to onboard wi-fi and phone charging facilities. The Teknikgatan bus stop in Lindholmen has an indoor terminal.
Besides the three completely electric buses, the route has electric hybrid buses that run on electricity for approximately 70% of the route.
In addition to the actual buses, ElectriCity develops and tests new bus stop systems, transport management systems, safety concepts and energy supply systems.
