VDV Vice-President Werner Overkamp re-elected. «Electric and fuel cell drives to achieve independence from oil»

VDV Vice-President Werner Overkamp was unanimously re-elected last week as Chairman of the Administrative Board Bus and thus also remains Vice-President for the bus sector in the German association of public transport companies VDV.

The managing director of STOAG Stadtwerke Oberhausen GmbH was elected VDV vice president for the first time in 2019. In summer 2021 he answered the questions of Sustainable Bus in an interview where he forecasted over 1,000 e-buses to be put in operation yearly in Germany in the years to come.

Electric and fuel cell drives to achieve oil-independence

“These are not easy times with sometimes unforeseen developments. Nevertheless, we are firmly committed to our goals with regard to climate protection and the necessary drive and mobility transformation. In addition, the issue of energy imports is now becoming even more important: if we want to continue to make ourselves independent of oil, then we must also continue to consistently promote climate-neutral drives in the bus sector, above all electric and hydrogen, and also reflect this in the federal budget, as announced in the coalition agreement. We will only achieve these goals as a team in the sector – and with the political decision-makers at federal, state and local level. I would therefore like to thank my colleagues most sincerely for the trust they have placed in me. My concern is to actively represent the interests of the bus companies in the association – and we must remain active ourselves, because without the bus, no transport turnaround will succeed. There is more to be done than ever: in the expansion of classic scheduled transport, supplementary on-demand services, e-bus fleets and infrastructure, a view to digitalisation and the shortage of skilled workers. The list could go on. I am looking forward to the further cooperation on the board and in the presidium of the association,” said Overkamp after the election.

Werner Overkamp: transformation to new technologies

“I am very pleased that Werner Overkamp stood for election again and was unanimously confirmed by the Board of Directors, because with his great experience and many years of activity in the industry and in the VDV, he is indispensable in the political discussion and with his expertise. As STOAG Managing Director, he is a long-standing public transport expert and practitioner who has initiated and implemented the transformation to new technologies and concepts in his company over the years. It is of great value that he can assess the challenging issues from his operational practice. It is this knowledge that is of great advantage to the VDV as an industry association and also as a professional association when it comes to maintaining the necessary objectivity in the political discussion at federal, state and local level. I wish him every success for his new term of office”, said VDV President Ingo Wortmann.

“I congratulate Werner Overkamp and the Administrative Council Bus on this election. Because the planning and implementation cycles for rail systems are more time-consuming, the bus fleets already now and in the near future have the task of playing a major role for the transport turnaround. We can already see this in the transformation towards electromobility. We need dense and flexible bus networks that extend to the outskirts of towns and villages – electric, close to customers and, in the future, autonomous. It will also be a matter of ensuring that public transport does not fall behind the car as the key to the transport revolution”, says VDV Executive Director Oliver Wolff.