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TTC: Electric and alternative fuel buses

They'd be wasting their time if they did. Every single alternative technology the TTC has tried to date has been a complete failure: CNG, Hybrid, Bio-Fuel, you name it they cant get it right.

First the title is not entirely true. the plan is to stop PROCURING by next year not phase out.
Since some are hung-up on semantics ("phase-out" and "eliminate" do not mean the same thing, the former meaning 'over time') here's the release from the Mayor's Office:
Sadiq to stop buying ‘dirtiest’ diesel buses and unveils hydrogen bus
30 November 2016
  • No more new pure diesel double-deckers added to bus fleet from 2018
  • All new single-deckers for central London to be zero-emission
Sadiq Khan today unveiled in London the world’s first double-decker hydrogen bus, as he committed to phasing out purchasing new pure ‘dirty’ diesel buses from the capital.

He revealed that no more pure diesel double-deck buses will be added to the capital’s fleet from 2018 and that all new single-decks for central London will be zero-emission.

It is estimated that the equivalent of 9,400 premature deaths occur each year in London due to illnesses caused by long-term exposure to air pollution and diesel vehicles are recognised as a major contributor to pollution and associated health impacts.

The new hydrogen double-decker is at the forefront of green technology and will be trialled on London’s roads next year. It is made by leading UK bus manufacturer Wrightbus and forms part of the Mayor’s plan to transform the capital’s bus fleet by phasing out the oldest and most polluting diesel buses, and making the entire fleet ultra-low or zero emission.

The Mayor unveiled the new bus as he and Deputy Mayor of Transport, Val Shawcross, met with international city officials, bus manufacturers, financiers and technology providers attending an International Zero-Emission Bus Conference and Summit at City Hall.

Sadiq Khan is calling on other cities to follow London’s lead and work together to challenge bus manufacturers to produce more zero-emission buses and make cleaner bus technology cheaper.

Eleven other major cities – including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Cape Town – have already responded to the call and agreed to begin moves to phase out their procurement of pure diesel buses by the end of 2020. In addition, Paris, Madrid and Mexico City have committed to removing diesel buses from their cities by 2025.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “I want London to become a world leader in hydrogen and electric bus technology. I’m implementing hard-hitting measures to clean-up London’s toxic air and it’s great that more cities are getting on board to phase out the procurement of pure diesel buses which sends a clear signal that only the cleanest technologies are wanted in our cities.

“Transforming London’s bus fleet by accelerating the introduction of zero-emission buses is important and I plan to work with bus manufacturers, other cities, the European Commission and the C40 Climate Change Leadership Group of Cities to move this agenda forward.”

As part of his commitment to cleaning the capital’s air, the Mayor wants all London buses to meet the Ultra-Low Emission Zone standard during 2020.

Mike Brown MVO, London’s Transport Commissioner, said: “We’re determined to make our public transport system one of the cleanest in the world and phasing out diesel buses lies at the heart of this. Zero emission buses are the future, and my staff are working hard with manufacturers and bus companies to make them a reality in the Capital as quickly as possible.”

Greener buses often have higher up-front capital and infrastructure costs than polluting diesel buses. To help address this issue, the C40 Climate Change Leadership Group of Cities has announced it will host a Finance Academy in April to help cities unlock funding for more zero emission buses and the supporting infrastructure required. There will also be a new European platform to align funding opportunities and coordinate planning/procurement by EU cities.

The EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc attended today’s conference to highlight the European Commission's efforts to support and encourage the uptake of zero emission buses across Europe.

She said: "I congratulate the cities of London and Paris on their far-reaching plans to deploy clean buses. European cities are global frontrunners, and I encourage all cities to make use of European funding opportunities to support this transition. Better co-operation of public authorities, operators, manufactures and finance is needed now. Therefore, we are developing a deployment initiative for clean buses at European level, including a platform to better align planning and investment. I invite all relevant partners to come on board."

London has committed to procuring roughly 300 zero emission buses by 2020, with 51 battery electric buses recently going into service on the 507/521 route, taking the number of completely electric bus routes to three, with 79 zero emission buses in total in the fleet.

Ms. Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, Vice Mayor for Environment and Transport, City of Oslo, said: "Oslo stands with London as cities taking climate action. Zero emission buses are vital for the climate and better for our cities. We endorse this bold step towards a zero emission society.

The Lord Mayor of Copenhagen, Frank Jensen, said: “In Copenhagen, all new buses will be based on zero emission and low noise technologies from 2019. I am pleased that London and Copenhagen are joining forces in the important task of reducing air pollution, noise and climate change by committing to deploy zero emission buses in our cities.“

The manufacturer of the hydrogen double-decker, Wrights Group Chairman and CEO Mark Nodder OBE said: “This exciting new zero-emissions bus, using hydrogen fuel-cell technology, is the pinnacle of our on-going work to deliver highly innovative buses with the best environmental credentials. Buses like this have the potential to make a massive contribution to improving the air quality of London and our major cities."

The Deputy Mayor for Environment and Energy, Shirley Rodrigues, will be attending the C40 Climate Change Summit in Mexico this week to work with other cities to accelerate action on cleaning up emissions.

Mark Watts, Executive Director, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group said: “Transport is a major source of emissions for cities around the world, and tackling emissions from diesel buses is one of the most important steps a city can take. London was a key champion and signatory of C40's Clean Bus Declaration last year and now with leadership from Mayor Khan, the city is ramping up ambition even further by stopping the procurement of pure diesel buses from 2018. Strong mayoral leadership and a committed administration are helping deliver this transformation. Other C40 cities are taking note, and we look forward to more cities standing alongside London to transform their bus fleets."

Notes to editors
Notes to editors

  1. At least 20 new hydrogen buses will be delivered as part of a £10m part-EU funded project supporting hydrogen technology, with TfL providing at least £5m in funding.
  2. The proposed London-wide Ultra-Low Emission Zone standard for heavy diesel vehicles, including buses, is a minimum of Euro VI.
  3. Other cities are joining the Mayor in moving their fleets to zero emission technology, including Cape Town, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Los Angeles, New York, Oslo, Rugao (China), Amsterdam and San Francisco. Together these cities have committed to procuring 1,000 zero emission buses using either electric or hydrogen technology over the next five years. This is turning into reality the commitment made by the 26 cities who signed the C40 Clean Bus Declaration in June 2015.
MEDIA ENQUIRIES: Press information is available by emailing economicdesk@london.gov.uk or calling 020 7983 4070.
GENERAL PUBLIC/NON-MEDIA ENQUIRIES: Call the Public Liaison Unit at the Greater London Authority on 020 7983 4100.
DUTY PRESS OFFICER: For out-of-hours media enquiries, please call 020 7983 400.
https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/sadiq-to-stop-buying-dirtiest-diesel-buses

Edit to Add: To be clear, unless the Hydrogen is utilized in a membrane type cell, and instead is used in a combustion engine, unless pure Oxygen is used as the oxidant, there will be emissions (NOx and others). However, they will be a *fraction* of what is now produced by diesel or gasoline. Research continues on producing high-functioning fuel cells, which will be atmosphere emission free, for gasoline and gaseous hydro-carbons. London is using fuel-cells, result, unless there is a fault, is water and

Like it or not, this is the future unfolding, and diesel, for all intents and purposes for major fleets in modern cities, is being retired fast. The TTC "must keep an eye on this unfolding" and be ready to embrace it shortly when the time is opportune, if it isn't already.
 
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And just in case the point is lost on some:

upload_2017-6-13_18-0-10.png

http://www.c40.org/researches/deadline-2020-us
http://www.c40.org/researches/deadline-2020-us
 

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In the case of bio-fuel, you're quite wrong. It was very successful, but only on a portion of the fleet. (On the rest, it didn't provide any benefit, but at least it wasn't a hindrance.) As it turned out, that portion was the oldest portion, and so as the older buses were phased out it became less and less useful. They only discontinued the bio-fuel program once the number of New Look buses equated a minuscule portion of the overall fleet.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
Technically speaking I guess you could call that a success, but essentially that's not much of a success if the benefits only came from a batch of buses that were going to be retired in the near future while in the rest of the fleet the impacts very small.

Nevertheless, that's an interesting piece of info you provided.
 
Technically speaking I guess you could call that a success, but essentially that's not much of a success if the benefits only came from a batch of buses that were going to be retired in the near future while in the rest of the fleet the impacts very small.

Nevertheless, that's an interesting piece of info you provided.

When they started the bio-fuel program in 2006, older buses such as the New Looks were the norm, not the exception. Basically anything pre-dating any modern emissions systems - the 7000-series Orion Vs were the first of the "modern" buses - benefited from the switch over.

By the time they stopped purchasing bio-fuel at the end of 2009 or so, there were less than 200 New Looks and older buses left. And the reason for the ending of the program was one of cost more than anything.

This report summarizes quite nicely the operating experience in Toronto: https://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Co...08/Aug_27_2008/Other/Use_Of_Bio_Diesel_At.jsp

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
Every single alternative technology the TTC has tried to date has been a complete failure
That's not true. Their 1921 experiment with those new gasoline-powered motor buses for lighter travelled routes, while keeping streetcars for heavier routes was revolutionary! And the use of double-deckers is only just coming back into vogue today!

 
When they started the bio-fuel program in 2006, older buses such as the New Looks were the norm, not the exception. Basically anything pre-dating any modern emissions systems - the 7000-series Orion Vs were the first of the "modern" buses - benefited from the switch over.

By the time they stopped purchasing bio-fuel at the end of 2009 or so, there were less than 200 New Looks and older buses left. And the reason for the ending of the program was one of cost more than anything.

This report summarizes quite nicely the operating experience in Toronto: https://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Co...08/Aug_27_2008/Other/Use_Of_Bio_Diesel_At.jsp

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
It looks like i'll have to give the TTC some credit for knowing what they're doing when it comes to alternative fuels, at least Bio-Fuels for that matter.

That's not true. Their 1921 experiment with those new gasoline-powered motor buses for lighter travelled routes, while keeping streetcars for heavier routes was revolutionary! And the use of double-deckers is only just coming back into vogue today!

If only we could get some of the management staff back from those years, maybe we would see some more revolutionary things happen after decades of negligence.
 
For reference purposes. See link on

Ontario looks at hydrogen-powered trains for GO Transit

Ministry of Transportation to conduct feasibility study of hydrogen trains, which are silent and emit only steam and water, as part of GO electrification assessment.


They are seriously desperate now for some brownie votes....All thats going to happen is further polarise this project and cause yet another wasted delay because some utopian politician
sold a dinner napkin idea. Sure this might be good to look into when we have a huge network in place but right now we are in much bigger need of a proven system to build said network
and catch up with the rest of the world!
 
Now it's BMW investing in electric buses.

Why BMW's Investment In Electric Bus Company Proterra Is Big News For The Future of How We Travel

If they can build it to the TTC specs then I could see it on the road her. Same goes with any manufacturer if they can build a vehicle to the specs set out by the TTC they would be interested in it.
 
Bombardier would be history if that were to happen.
Not necessarily they are very big in europe it's just in north America that they are struggling. Pretty much all manufactures of streetcar vehicles are struggling to get a foothold in North America as most cities are only starting to pout trams/ streetcars back into service or they are building lines in cities that never had them. It's like comparing car manufacturers her to the ones in europe and the rest of the world. For example you don't see as many min vans outside of Canada and the US because of the size of roads over there.
 
An editorial from the Los Angeles Times, at this link:

Electric buses are L.A.'s transit future

When the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority retired its last diesel-powered bus in 2011, it became the first major transit agency in the nation to completely switch its fleet to alternative-fuel technologies, demonstrating in the years that followed that buses running on cleaner energy could be both reliable and affordable. Now in an effort to cut pollution even more, Metro is preparing to switch again — this time aiming to shift its entire 2,200-bus fleet to zero-emissions models by 2030.

To that end, Metro’s Board of Directors this week is expected to approve a contract to buy 35 electric buses that would operate on the Orange Line busway in the San Fernando Valley. The plan is to complete the rollout of electric buses on the Orange Line by 2020 and by 2021 for the Silver Line, which provides express service between San Pedro, downtown L.A. and El Monte. If the buses perform well, Metro would proceed with plans to buy all zero-emission buses over the next decade.

This is an about-face for the transit agency. Until recently Metro was pursuing plans to buy up to 1,000 compressed natural gas buses, which are significantly cleaner than the old diesel models but still produce smog-forming pollution and emit greenhouse gases. Metro staff members were hesitant to commit to electric buses after some models in a 2015 test ran out of charge quickly and had trouble climbing hills. But environmental groups have been lobbying for Metro to give electric buses another chance, especially after other transit agencies have had more success with newer models.

Metro is right to move cautiously. The agency is still going to buy some 300 natural gas buses this year to replace aging vehicles. But the zero-emission goal is an important one. Large public agencies like Metro are well positioned to be leaders because they have the purchasing power to spur the market forward.

When Metro, the nation’s second-largest public transit agency, announces plans to shift to zero-emission buses, it sends a signal across the industry. It shows manufacturers that there are buyers for electric buses. It shows other agencies that the technology is ready for prime time, and it could encourage them to switch as well. Los Angeles County can again lead on cleaner, greener buses.
 
One thing to bear in mind when considering alternative technologies is operating temperatures. Toronto is cursed with hot and cold regimes over an annual cycle.
 

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