The STM has set its own objectives in order to achieve that target. The STM's objective is to acquire only zero-emission vehicles, but by 2025. That means that the standard bus that the STM buys in 2025 will be 100% electric and will recharge overnight and be in service all day, achieving, we hope, the same performance as the diesel buses we operate today. Performance is very important. If our buses perform at a lower level, we need more buses, drivers and depots, as a result of which operating costs are much higher. This is something that a transit company the size of Montreal's cannot really absorb.
The public transit of tomorrow will definitely be electric in Montreal by 2025. Electric buses performing to current standards are not yet available, but we have a plan to get there. We have six projects, and that is what I am going to present to you.
We have already changed the standard STM bus. In 2012, the standard bus runs on up to 5% biodiesel. All transit authorities have signed a contract for a group purchase of hybrid buses over a four-year period starting in 2013. Why a hybrid bus? We have taken advantage of a federal program, the Urban Transportation Showcase program, to test hybrid vehicles in cooperation with our colleagues from Gatineau. That is the bus that appears in the photograph. We have been able to compare the performance of this hybrid bus with that of our standard buses.
We have measured fuel savings of 30% in our actual operations in Montreal. Based on our current fuel cost, we will be able to recover our investment by the end of the buses' economic life, which is 16 years. In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fuel consumption, we will ultimately save a little money. The four-year contract, which will be awarded very soon, covers 1,000 buses for all of Quebec's transit authorities.
We also have another project to introduce electric midibuses in Montreal. Midibuses are a little smaller, 9 metres long instead of 12. They are smaller because current batteries do not perform as well. We cannot have an electric 12-metre bus that performs to the desired level. So we are going with smaller buses. With these buses, we cannot engage in massive public transit on very busy routes. We are targeting tourist routes. Initially, they will be the Old Port in Old Montreal and then Mont-Royal park and places like that.
The STM has ordered seven midibuses. The contract has been awarded, and our call for tenders was of course public. That is part of the problem we want to speak to you about this morning. We received only one bid. A single company is interested in supplying us with electric buses: DesignLine, in the United States. After conducting some checks, we awarded it the contract. For the STM, this is our first experience with electric buses. We will learn a lot about operations, maintenance and engineering. Of course, we will share all we learn with the other transit authorities interested, in both Quebec and Canada.
We cannot achieve the target set by the provincial government, which is to have 95% of passenger trips by electric public transport by 2030, using the smaller buses that I showed you. The heavy traffic is not on the tourist routes, but rather on the major routes. We have two projects addressing the major routes where there are a lot of people, where we have to go fast, where we have to move a lot of people.
The purpose of the first project is to reintroduce trolleybuses to Montreal. We have a study under way. We are looking at three very busy main lines in Montreal and some 100 articulated buses with increased capacity. The trolleybus is an completely proven technology. Today some 40,000 trolleybuses are operating on roads around the world, in snow, on ice and in the mountains, without any problem. This is really not a technological challenge. The challenge, of course, is to convince the city's urban planners to add routes, but we are working very hard on that. We are convinced the public will be very receptive to these buses.
The next project concerns a slightly heavier mode of transportation than trolleybuses. And it is intended for busier routes. It is a tramway system. The City of Montreal and the STM are partners on this one. The objective is to reintroduce tramways to the streets of Montreal. The studies have been completed. We are talking about three tramway lines. The City of Montreal is currently looking for funding. This is quite an expensive project.
We are future-oriented. This is not just about midibuses and trolleybuses: we have to think of all our other bus routes. We have a project under way with our partners, Nova Bus and Bombardier. The idea is to recharge a 12-metre electric bus, a standard bus for the STM, by induction, that is to say without contact. That is what you see in the picture. This is in fact very simple: a plate generates an electromagnetic field when the bus is above it, and a plate under the bus captures the energy without making contact. This is what we want to test. It is really a research and development project. This technology is currently raising more questions than it answers, but we are confident. If it works, and we hope it does, it will help offset current battery performance deficiencies and enable us to put 12-metre electric buses into circulation long before 2025.
The STM still calculates its greenhouse gas emissions by displacement. We take into account not only bus emissions, but also those associated with our buildings and service vehicles. According to a new STM policy, every time we have to replace a service vehicle, whether it be a car, a truck, a van or a special vehicle that operates in the metro at night, we conduct very serious market research to find an appropriate electric vehicle. As you can see, we recently bought a number of Chevrolet Volts. We try to find electric vehicles in every case.
