*3.6. Other Parameters*

The TCO calculation also requires some other parameters. The interest rate is used to calculate the capital cost of the investments and it has been set to 3%. This is a low interest rate, but a city or government can often borrow at such low rate.

## **4. Calculating TCO Input Variables from Timetable and Bus Route Parameters**

Figure 1 shows the nine variables needed to calculate the TCO of the buses. However, these in turn have to be calculated from the route and timetable, and this section shows the steps in which this is done. In Figure 3, the main steps are shown, and they are then described in the following sections.

**Figure 3.** Steps 1–6 for how to calculate the nine TCO input variables, and information flow between these steps (to the left). The white boxes show some of the key variables calculated in different steps and the output variables.
