Fred Jandt’s rethinking rail article on the Mass Transit web site (discussed here on Monday) offhandedly mentioned “what Foothill Transit did this week” with buses. That was a reference to the introduction of some of the first all-electric buses in the U.S. A mere 10-minute recharge of the batteries on these “ecoliners” is supposed to be enough to allow them to run for 30 miles.
Foothill Transit’s new electric bus.
All over the country, transit agencies are purchasing hybrid-electric buses, natural-gas-powered buses, and other alternatives to Diesels, which have a well-deserved reputation for being dirty. While transit is popularly believed to be environmentally friendly, the truth is that it is not, and this is especially true for buses, which typically use more energy and produce more pollution (at least more of the kinds of pollution that are of greatest concern today, namely CO2, NOx, and particulates), per passenger mile, than autos and even SUVs.
As the Michigan transit report mentioned here last week carefully stated under the heading, “Transit Protects the Environment,” “New technologies (hybrid engines) and cleaner energy sources (compressed natural gas and electricity) help reduce vehicular emissions.” In other words, buses are environmentally friendly only if they use alternative fuels. Even then, they may reduce emissions below Diesel buses, but not necessarily below cars.
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One problem is that these alternatives are all expensive. The Foothill Transit electric buses, for example, cost $1.2 million, which one news story claims is “twice as expensive as a regular bus.” Make that more than four times as expensive: a standard, 40-foot transit bus starts at around $300,000, but the Foothill electric buses are only 35-footers. Though they claim to hold 68 people, that’s only with most of them standing.
Like most transit agencies, Foothills Transit has had to “hike its fares and implement system-wide service reductions” due to budget problems. But it can still spend more than four times as much as it needs to buying new buses. The buses were purchased with federal stimulus grants that could only be spent on capital improvements, but if the agency had any integrity, it might have told the feds, “We can’t take your money when we can’t even afford to run the buses we already have.” Ironically, cutting transit routes may well do more for the environment than the electric buses.
“HybridCenter,” a project of the Union of Concerned Scientists, questions whether the added cost of hybrid buses is worthwhile. “Hybrid buses can cost up to $500,000,” while natural gas buses are only $20,000 to $50,000 more than the $300,000 cost of Diesel bus. Many transit agencies report that hybrids reduce fuel consumption (and, no doubt, the resulting pollution) by only about 10 percent, while natural gas does at least that well at reducing emissions.
A different calculus is needed for electric buses, of course. According to the Department of Energy’s state electricity guide, California gets 60 percent of its electricity from natural gas and most of the rest from non-polluting sources such as hydro and nuclear. That makes its electricity cleaner than, say, Colorado, which gets 80 percent of its electricity from burning fossil fuels, half of which comes from coal.
Due to losses in generating and distributing electricity, however, electrical generating plants typically consume three times as much power from their energy sources as they deliver to their customers. So it would have made more sense to save those losses and simply bought buses that burn natural gas. But transit agencies no longer get headlines for buying natural-gas-powered buses, so pleasing taxpayers with gee-whiz technologies takes precedence over doing the best thing for the environment or actually serving transit customers.
One of the Antiplanner’s strongest points is that transit agencies often cut service in order to spend the money on some splashy new capital purchase.
Those real-world decisions greatly undermine the pro-transit argument that the incentives for public transit agencies are to serve a dependent public, as these agencies seem to just be chasing grants and attention. We have had 30 years of “demonstration” projects, which pretty much means they have demonstrated that it is not cost effective.
In addition to being more expensive to purchase, compressed natural gas (CNG) buses require special (read: expensive) equipment to fill their fuel tanks, and the process of fueling the buses is time-consuming as well.
And some CNG buses have problems with fire … as in being a fire hazard. The WMATA bus described in this story on Dave Statter’s Statter911 site did not have any passengers on board when it burned up at a park-and-ride lot adjacent to the U.S. 50 freeway in Anne Arundel County, Maryland (apparently the bus was being test-driven by a mechanic, since no WMATA bus route serves this lot).
The Antiplanner wrote:
> All over the country, transit agencies are purchasing
> hybrid-electric buses, natural-gas-powered buses, and
> other alternatives to Diesels, which have a
> well-deserved reputation for being dirty.
Certainly older (1960’s-vintage and earlier) transit buses, especially with the exhaust pipe at ground level, had a tendency to spray pedestrians with nasty cloud of dirty, oily and particulate-laden exhaust when they moved away from a bus stop or traffic signal.
But Diesel-powered buses today must meet strict USEPA heavy-duty Diesel emission standards, so this is much less of an issue than it once was. And Diesel buses tend to cost less for transit agencies to own and operate.
This is an excellent question, and it depends upon the life-cycle of the item in question and what local agencies have for carbon reduction targets. If the two cross, then the lowest-carbon fuel is in order.
It is that simple of a scenario analysis.
It is also a side point that can’t be mapped in a scenario, but it is also as simple as what the Koch boys are disinforming about, and doing the opposite of that.
DS
There are a few things to keep in mind in order to properly evaluate the potential success or failure of this new design.
First, the high cost reflects the fact the vehicle is a prototype. Volume production would reduce the cost substantially if it works.
Second, assuming the energy consumption averages around 2 kwh per mile, an average load factor of 4 passenger miles/vehicle mile would be the rough “break even” with personal auto usage in terms of both emissions and energy usage. At the typical 7-8 average load of the U.S. transit industry, such vehicles would be twice as energy efficient.
My 2 kwh per mile estimate appears reasonable, given the vehicle’s weight and the fact that much heavier San Francisco Muni 40-foot trolley coaches use about 3 kwh/mile in that City’s very hilly environment.
Third, there is still large potential to reduce energy usage through modern lightweight materials, an area that modern industry has only begun to work on. Weight is very important because it dictates the size and expense of the propulsion system.
It is interesting how The Antiplanner almost never seems to preface his comments with information and caveats that might contradict his point. This new bus design is a work in progress that appears more promising than many of the hybrid buses that have so far been underwhelming in the real world.
First Bus in the UK tried natural-gas buses. They did not enjoy much success with them, finding the buses to be very unreliable. Further, it’s a nuisance having two different fuel sources in a bus garage.
Hence the interest in hybrid buses. They run on diesel, but knock the corners off the pollution caused by buses.
Antiplanner wrote:
“Due to losses in generating and distributing electricity, however, electrical generating plants typically consume three times as much power from their energy sources as they deliver to their customers. So it would have made more sense to save those losses and simply bought buses that burn natural gas.”
That is also true of any combustion engine, including car and bus engines. I’m not sure what point Antiplanner was trying to make here.
I hope the new electric buses don’t have hills to climb. It’s not that electric buses can’t climb hills – electric buses have more torque than a diesel bus – but when the batteries are running low the buses become sluggish. Also, it’s likely that with the batteries on board, the bus is up to the usual maximum weight before passengers start boarding.
http://www.transportpolicy.org.uk/PublicTransport/AdvancedBuses/AdvancedBuses.htm
That is also true of any combustion engine, including car and bus engines. I’m not sure what point Antiplanner was trying to make here.
Good point, Francis – I read over that bit.
I remember long ago one of our physics problems was what is the net power of a typical car with an internal-combustion engine. IIRC it was 26% from the tank, less if you counted refining and transport.
Further enforcement of M Setty’s point above.
DS
A good thing you didn’t mention ethanol. Buses shouldn’t run on something that could encourage more public drunkenness by employees. :-)(Yes, I know ethanol is usually blended)
“Stockholm acts to block drunken bus drivers”
http://www.thelocal.se/28856/20100908/
“While transit is popularly believed to be environmentally friendly, the truth is that it is not…”
I was a long-time rider of the MAX and understand where the light rail gets electricity. I never rode the Portland streetcar because I could walk or longboard faster than that slow beast.
One thing I would like to know more about the secondary environmental effects of street cars, like Seattle’s SLUT. Nevermind the $56m price tag for a 1.2 mile route that is walkable and already served by several bus lines. Focus instead on the SLUT’s traffic impacts. Vehicles traveling east/southeast on Fairview have to stop at the Broad/Fairview intersection, and vehicles coming off I-5 get priority going west on Broad. Enter the SLUT. The street car comes by, with maybe two or three passengers, and takes one traffic light cycle so that traffic on Fairview backs up and has to wait another long cycle for the light to change. One can sit at the light waiting for 10 minutes because of the SLUT and its three riders. So the street car, which carries a handful of riders, forces cars to idle, which increases CO2 emissions.
Again, I’d really like to see some empirical evidence on how street cars affect auto traffic; my guess is that when you factor in traffic disruptions, street cars actually increase pollution.
Frank, If you go back and read comments on this blog, you will see that there are people that think the whole purpose of public transit is to screw over evil automobiles.
They also think that the fact that light rail and other transit trains can’t pay for themselves must be cured by redesigning where we live, what our houses look like, and how we visit our grandmothers. Normal businesses try to make your life incrementally better to attract money. These planners want to tax you and take your money just to force you to change your life for the worse.
Devon,
I’ve never read anything on this blog (aside from sarcastic remarks) that supports your claims. There are no planner death panels, so maybe you can try and tone down the hyperbole and join the big kid discussion.
Bennett, you know d*mn well you are not on a death panel, but you are on a paint panel that seeks to tear down the facades of existing homes (with people in them) and re-do them.
They will be forced to be paid for by tax levy in a planning New Urbanist Fantasy Tax.
I heard you are also on a Parking Panel that will take away the street in front of these houses so people are forced to walk. You know you are. You can’t hide your soshulizt redevelopment fantasies.
DS
it is utterly fascinating how some commentators here, such as Devon, are more interested in blanket ideological attacks, rather than staying on topic and addressing The Antiplanner’s original post, e.g, is it worthwhile investing in new technology vehicles like the Proterra electric bus in order to dramatically reduce the energy usage and boost the overall efficiency of transit?
I believe the Antiplanner’s stated concerns are legitimate: can the $1.2 million cost of the vehicle be brought down and are the alleged energy savings of the design actually going to materialize? I think the answer to both concerns is yes; we now have a “real world” trial in progress that hopefully will produce some results soon.
The Antiplanner is also correct that in far too many cities, transit occupancies–particularly buses–-are low and personal vehicles win the direct energy comparison (though there is strong evidence that every transit passenger mile replaces two automobile vehicle miles, but elaborating on this tangent here would make this post far too long and off-topic).
For myself, I’m not interested in giving too much attention, or replying, to right-wing ideological b.s. spewed by Devon and his fellow travelers (sic). Dan, Highwayman and Bennett, pull-eze stop feeding the trolls!
“Bennett, pull-eze stop feeding the trolls!”
Touche.
Devon said: Frank, If you go back and read comments on this blog, you will see that there are people that think the whole purpose of public transit is to screw over evil automobiles.
THWM: Automobiles aren’t evil, trains aren’t evil, though the Koch Oil sponsored automobiles only anti-freedom political agenda is evil!
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