What Cities Can Learn From North America’s Largest Electric Bus Fleet (Yes, It’s Canadian)

Emission reductions are the primary reason the federal government intends to add 5,000 electric buses for Canada’s transit and school fleets by the end of 2024. New funding announced this week as part of the government fall tax update it could also give a boost to programs to electrify public transport systems.

“You are seeing a huge movement towards all-electric,” said Bem Case, head of vehicle programs at the Toronto Transit Commission. “I think all transit agencies are starting to see what we’re seeing … the broader benefits.”

TTC obtained approval from its board of directors to purchase its first 30 electric buses in November 2017. Its plan is to have a zero-emission fleet by 2040. This is a crucial part of Toronto’s plan to achieve its 2050 greenhouse gas targets, which require 100 percent of its vehicles to switch to low-carbon energy by that date.

But Case said the transition can’t happen overnight.

Find the right bus

For one thing, finding the right bus isn’t easy.

“There is no bus, from any manufacturer, that has been in service the entire life of a bus, which is 12 years,” Case said.

“And so, really, until then, we don’t have enough experience, nor does anyone else in the industry, have enough experience to immediately commit to a fully electric fleet.”

In fact, Case said, there are only three manufacturers producing suitable long-haul buses, the kind needed in a city the size of Toronto. Having never bought electric buses before, the city didn’t have specifics for what it needed in an electric bus, so it decided to try all three suppliers: New Flyer, BYD and Proterra.

They all had their strengths and weaknesses, based on their background as a traditional non-electric bus manufacturer, battery and vehicle technology manufacturer, and design startup respectively.

“Each type of bus has its potential challenges.” Case said all three manufacturers are working to fix any problems as quickly as possible.

Infrastructure installation

But the biggest challenge of all, Case said, is building the infrastructure.

“There is no playbook, really, for implementing the charging infrastructure,” Case said.

Each type of bus needed its own chargers, in some cases using different types of current. Each type was installed in a different garage in collaboration with the local Toronto Hydro utility.

The purchase and installation represented approximately $ 70 million, or roughly half the cost of acquiring Toronto’s first 60 electric buses. The $ 140 million project was funded by the Federal Public Transportation Infrastructure Fund.

Case said it takes about three hours to charge a battery that’s completely discharged. To maximize the use of the bus, a long route is typically taken in the morning, covering 200 to 250 kilometers. So it’s partially charged and set off for a shorter run in the late afternoon.

“This way we can get as much mileage on buses as possible.”

Cost and reliability?

In addition to the cost of the charger infrastructure, each electric bus can cost anywhere from $ 200,000 to $ 500,000 more per bus than an average $ 750,000 diesel bus.

Case acknowledges that it is “significantly” more expensive, but is offset by fuel savings over time, as electricity costs are cheaper. Since electric buses have fewer parts than diesel buses, maintenance costs are also around 25% lower and buses are expected to be more reliable.

As with many new technologies, the cost of electric buses is also decreasing over time.

Case predicts that they will eventually reach the point where the total life cycle cost of an electric bus and a diesel bus will be comparable, and the electric bus could even save money in the long run.

All weather tests are required

As of this fall, all but one of 60 new electric buses have been put into service. The last one should start in early December.

Summer tests showed bus air conditioning reduced battery capacity by around 15 percent.

But the TTC has to see how much of the battery capacity is consumed by heating in winter, at least when the temperature is above 5 C. Below this, a diesel-powered heater goes into operation.

Once the tests are complete, TTC plans to develop specifications for its electric bus fleet and order another 300 in 2023 for delivery between 2023 and 2025.

Potential Benefits

Even with some diesel heating, the TTC estimates that electric buses reduce fuel consumption by 70 to 80 percent. If its entire fleet switched to electric buses, it could save $ 50 million to $ 70 million in fuel per year and 150 tons of greenhouse gases per bus per year, or 340,000 tons for the entire fleet.

In addition to greenhouse gases, electric buses also generate fewer emissions of other pollutants. They are also quieter, creating a more comfortable urban environment for pedestrians and cyclists.

But the benefits could potentially go far beyond the local city.

“If public agencies start electrifying their fleet and their service is very demanding, I think they will show the wider transportation industry that it is possible,” Case said. “And this is where you get the real benefits for the environment.”

Alex Milovanovich, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto’s Department of Civil Engineering, led a study that suggested that electrified transit has a crucial role to play in the low-carbon economy of the future.

His calculations show that 90% of US passenger cars – 300 million – are expected to be electric by 2050 to meet the global Paris agreement targets to combat climate change. And that would strain resources, including mining for metals like lithium and cobalt used in electric vehicle batteries and the power grid itself.

A better solution, he showed, was to combine the transition to electric vehicles with a reduction in the number of private vehicles and increased use of transit, cycling and walking.

“Then it becomes a viable image,” he said.

What it takes to make the transition

But for that to happen, governments need to make investments, he added.

This includes subsidies for the purchase of electric buses and the construction of charging stations so that transit agencies don’t have to charge too high. But it also includes more general improvements to the range and reliability of the transit infrastructure.

“Electrifying the bus fleet is only efficient if we have a large fleet of public transport and if we have a lot of buses on the road and people take them,” Milovanovich said.

In its November 30 fall economic update, the federal government announced $ 150 million over three years earlier accelerate the installation of zero-emission vehicle infrastructure.

Josipa Petrunic, CEO of the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium, a nonprofit organization focused on zero-carbon mobility and transportation, has said in the past that similar funding has paid for high-power charging systems for transit systems in BC and Ontario. But that’s only a small part of what’s needed, he said.

“Infrastructure Canada needs to get to the table with the money for the buses and the rest of the system.”

He said funding is needed for:

• Feasibility studies to understand how many and which types of buses are needed for the different routes in different transport systems.

• Goals and incentives to motivate transit systems to make the switch.

• Incentives to encourage Canadian procurement to build industry in Canada.

• Technology to collect and share data on the performance of electric vehicles so that transport systems can make the best possible decisions to meet the needs of their motorcyclists.

Petrunic said that a positive side effect of electrification of transportation systems is that the infrastructure can support, in addition to buses, electric trucks for moving goods.

So far, Petrunic said, Canada has about 120 electric buses in order and on the roads.

“It’s not much since we have 15,000 buses out there in the transit fleet,” he said. “But we should be able to go much further if we match the zero-carbon city commitments with federal and provincial funding for jobs that create zero-carbon technologies.”