Our team’s primary role was to understand the infrastructure, operation, and economics of a newly electrified bus fleet, and help develop an appropriate transition plan. We drew on our work with other transit agencies grappling with bus electrification and included a team member who brought experience leading electric mobility and renewable energy programs for large utilities. This provided us with a clear understanding of the subject matter, the state of technology, and insights into how transit agencies plan and make decisions.

We also needed to apply our cross-disciplinary expertise in the electric grid to this project, including technical operation, economics, market design, and regulatory considerations. To the electric grid, an electric bus, a chiller, and a convenience store all draw power in unique ways, at different times of day, and at different levels. There are more similarities than dissimilarities through this lens of thinking. In each case, there is a clear switch in fuel resulting in a significant shift in how an organization owns and operates infrastructure, buys fuel, and experiences the resulting economics.

Our team worked with local partners to collect the fleet’s current fuel consumption, route information, run hours, mileage, etc., to help develop a baseline economic and emissions case for the current bus lines. Using this baseline, we performed the necessary analysis to understand what an electrified bus system might look like, using different bus configurations, bus charging technologies with their resulting energy use and infrastructure needs, and emissions reduction. We compared different energy charging strategies and their technical and economic implications, such as charging at the local bus maintenance station only, on-route charging, and a combination of both.