Air quality in urban areas is strongly influenced by exhaust emitted by the public transport fleet. The aim of this study was to analyze benefits in the fuel consumption, fuel costs and exhaust emissions when replacing baseline diesel fueled EURO III city buses by the compressed natural gas (CNG)-fueled EURO V buses and by hydraulic series hybrid diesel-fueled EURO V buses. Real-world measurements were performed on the regular bus route to access realistic energy consumption and exhaust emissions. Instantaneous gaseous emission (CO₂, CO, NOx and THC) were measured together with the instantaneous PM10 mass emission. Innovativeness of the presented approach thus arises from the systematic comparison of different powertrain technologies under real-world drive cycles and measuring time traces of not only gaseous but also of PM10 mass emissions. Furthermore, lumped cycle averaged emissions are interpreted and explained by typical powertrain performance parameters and exhaust emission time traces. Cumulative results indicate that application of the CNG fueled buses does not necessary reduce CO₂ emissions compared to diesel-fueled buses whereas reduction in fuel costs is evident. Additionally, it is shown that hybrid operation of the hydraulic series hybrid diesel-fueled bus resulted in higher fuel consumption due to poorly optimized hybrid topology and control strategy. Furthermore, analyses of the time traces point out inadequate lambda control of CNG-fueled buses and nucleation mode-based particle number emissions during deceleration.