## 5 Results and Discussion
According to the simulations, 24.7% of the bus lines can be performed by a fleet of buses with a single recharge during the night (depot charging); 53.6% can be covered by buses that also use one or multiple recharges during the day (depot + opportunity  
Figure 7: Suitable areas for e-bike charging points (1:600,000). Source: own elaboration. charging); the remaining 21.7% of the bus lines are required to increase the number of buses to guarantee the same service. Furthermore, the simulation tool identified 223 locations for bus charging points necessary to guarantee regional service. The number decreases to 95 if the bus charging points are clustered when the distance between the charging point locations is under 500 m. The total energy provided by the charging points is 83 MWh/day. In Figure 8, the location of the potential charging points is shown. Furthermore, the charging points are shown in different colors depending on their energy delivery to the buses per day (considering a typical week winter day as reference day). The presented simulation tool was specifically developed to consider the energy penalties and specificity of the alpine area and to include the impact that the winter conditions might have on the bus autonomy and, more in general, on the whole regional service. The regional service is characterized by longer bus routes that range from a few kilometers to 57 km for a single one-way route and with an elevation difference up to 1750 m. All the bus routes of the regional service have been simulated to consider that the regional infrastructure is required to maintain and guarantee the public service. The regional routes serve low-density areas that might need to be modified and adapt the electric grid infrastructure to be able to insert a bus recharging point. In Figure 9, the layers of the suitability of EVs and buses for charging stations overlap, and a charging hub cluster of 3 km around the potential bus charging stations is shown. As can be seen in some cases, the charging station is self-standing and a combination with a bus charging station is not possible (e.g., second cluster from right); however, in other cases, bus and EV charging stations are on the limit of such a cluster (e.g., the first cluster from the right) or they are nearly overlapping (e.g., the first three clusters from left). In such cases, at least an evaluation of a shared charging station could be considered, especially if the charging station is in remote areas where low charging frequency from EVs and buses is to be expected (e.g., the first and second charging stations from the top). Figure 8: Bus potential recharging points are classified based on the daily energy absorbed by the grid network (1:600,000). Source: own elaboration. Costs and Economic Efficiency of Future Publicly Accessible Charging Infrastructure  
In order to assess potential future costs needed to cover the case study region with the infrastructure for e-bikes and electric cars, the areas with medium-high suitability were extracted. Specific values are indicated in Table 5.  
The economic efficiency for the charging point operator is directly dependent on the amount of electricity transferred through the charging station. Based on the information collected from the charging point operators, 5-6 daily charging sessions are needed for the profitability of a 22 kW AC charging station. Charging infrastructure in such locations can therefore be advised to be installed at the expense of the private operators. Although the cost of an e-bike charging station is around 30% of the cost of that of an e-car, the electricity consumed via this station is only around 1% of an e-car station (considering an average battery size of 60 kWh for e-cars versus 0.6 kWh for e-bikes). In this case, economic efficiency cannot be achieved through electricity sales.