King County Metro Transit Hybrid Articulated Transit Buses: Interim Evaluation Results

Final technical report compares and evaluates new diesel and diesel hybrid-electric articulated buses operated as part of the King County Metro Transit (KC Metro) fleet in Seattle, Washington. The evaluation lasted 12 months.

This status report, fourth in a series of annual status reports from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, summarizes progress and accomplishments from demonstrations of fuel cell transit buses in the United States. This year's assessment report provides the results from the fifth year of operation of five Van Hool, ISE, and UTC Power fuel cell buses operating atAC Transit, SunLine, and CTTRANSIT. The achievements and challenges of this bus design, implementation, and operating are presented, with a focus on the next steps for implementing larger numbers and new and different designs of fuel cell buses. The major positive result from nearly five years of operation is the dramatic increase in reliability experienced for the fuel cell power system.

A cyberattack resilient model for battery electric bus transit fleets using real-time adaptive system information

Transit ridership has been seriously affected around the world by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigates the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on bus service ridership patterns in King County, Washington, using clustering and multinomial logit (MNL) models. Ridership patterns of King County Metro buses during different study periods are detected using clustering. The characteristics of ridership patterns and cluster assignment spatial distributions are further examined. The MNL models were developed using explanatory factors, including socio-demographic, transit service, and land use characteristics at each stop, that are correlated with the ridership pattern cluster assignments. Results of the developed models demonstrate disparities across socio-economic groups and unevenness throughout different neighborhoods in ridership reduction and peaking patterns during COVID-19.

We present new algorithms that use transit vehicles as probes for determining traffic speeds and travel times along freeways and other primary arterials. We describe the use of vehicle locations produced by an automatic vehicle location (AVL) system, the King County Metro Transit AVL System, to construct sensors on every road segment over which transit vehicles travel. We present the resulting estimates of speed and use that data to estimate travel times.

The Texas Hydrogen Highway project has showcased a hydrogen fuel cell transit bus and hydrogen fueling infrastructure that was designed and built through previous support from various public and private sector entities. The aim of this project has been to increase awareness among transit agencies and other public entities on these transportation technologies, and to place such technologies into commercial applications, such as a public transit agency. The initial project concept developed in 2004 was to show that a skid-mounted, fully-integrated, factory-built and tested hydrogen fueling station could be used to simplify the design, and lower the cost of fueling infrastructure for fuel cell vehicles. The approach was to design, engineer, build, and test the integrated fueling station at the factory then install it at a site that offered educational and technical resources and provide an opportunity to showcase both the fueling station and advanced hydrogen vehicles. The two primary technology components include: Hydrogen Fueling Station: The hydrogen fueling infrastructure was designed and built by Gas Technology Institute primarily through a funding grant from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. It includes hydrogen production, clean-up, compression, storage, and dispensing. The station consists of a steam methane reformer, gas clean-up system, gas compressor and 48 kilograms of hydrogen storage capacity for dispensing at 5000 psig. The station is skid-mounted for easy installation and can be relocated if needed. It includes a dispenser that is designed to provide temperaturecompensated fills using a control algorithm. The total station daily capacity is approximately 50 kilograms. Fuel Cell Bus: The transit passenger bus built by Ebus, a company located in Downey, CA, was commissioned and acquired by GTI prior to this project. It is a fuel cell plug-in hybrid electric vehicle which is ADA compliant, has air conditioning sufficient for Texas operations, and regenerative braking for battery charging. It uses a 19.3 kW Ballard PEM fuel cell, will store 12.6 kg of hydrogen at 350 Bar, and includes a 60 kWh battery storage system. The objectives of the project included the following: (a) To advance commercialization of hydrogen-powered transit buses and supporting infrastructure; (b) To provide public outreach and education by showcasing the operation of a 22-foot fuel cell hybrid shuttle bus and Texas first hydrogen fueling infrastructure; and (c) To showcase operation of zero-emissions vehicle for potential transit applications. As mentioned above, the project successfully demonstrated an early vehicle technology, the Ebus plug-in hybrid fuel cell bus, and that success has led to the acquisition of a more advanced vehicle that can take advantage of the same fueling infrastructure. Needed hydrogen station improvements have been identified that will enhance the capabilities of the fueling infrastructure to serve the new bus and to meet the transit agency needs. Over the course of this project, public officials, local government staff, and transit operators were engaged in outreach and education activities that acquainted them with the real world operation of a fuel cell bus and fueling infrastructure. Transit staff members in the Dallas/Ft. Worth region were invited to a workshop in Arlington, Texas at the North Central Texas Council of Governments to participate in a workshop on hydrogen and fuel cells, and to see the fuel cell bus in operation. The bus was trucked to the meeting for this purpose so that participants could see and ride the bus. Austin area transit staff members visited the fueling site in Austin to be briefed on the bus and to participate in a fueling demonstration. This led to further meetings to determine how a fuel cell bus and fueling station could be deployed at Capital Metro Transit. Target urban regions that expressed additional interest during the project in response to the outreach meetings and showcase events include San Antonio and Austin, Texas. In summary, the project objectives were achieved in the following ways: Through presentations and papers provided to a variety of audiences in multiple venues, the project team fulfilled its goal of providing education and outreach on hydrogen technology to statewide audiences. The project team generated interest that exists well beyond the completion of the project, and indeed, helped to generate financial support for a subsequent hydrogen vehicle project in Austin. The University of Texas, Center for ElectroMechanics operated the fuel cell-electric Ebus vehicle for over 13,000 miles in Austin, Texas in a variety of routes and loading configurations. The project took advantage of prior efforts that created a hydrogen fueling station and fuel cell electric-hybrid bus and continued to verify their technical foundation, while informing and educating potential future users of how these technologies work.

The quality of urban life is highly determined by the grade of intra-city mobility. This paper presents a study analysis and recommends the measures needed to optimise and improve the efficiency of Dehradun intra-city transit, by mainly focusing on the three main modes of public transportation, the primary being Dehradun Bus Transit, followed by the para-transits, Vikram and Tracker. The motivation behind publishing this paper was to help the government agencies in strategizing and implementing the engineering solutions to digitally modernise and automate the public transit fleet, to eventually get the people to move from private transport to public modes. The report progresses by firstly presenting the facts pertaining to the current workings of the Bus Service. After presenting the facts, the paper then conducts a literature review, by comparing Dehradun to seven other cities which were selected on the grounds of Land Distribution, Population and availability of resources. To help the readers determine the objectives, the paper mentions the Key Performance Indicators and the methodology used. The paper then moves on to analysing the data like boarding and alighting data points and passenger perspective, average fare for different perimeters, which were collected over a span of six months. Bringing it all together, the paper then tries to recommend four alternative engineering solutions, each of which varies in moderation with regard to the involvement of the Public Sector Undertaking and the Private Sector ownership after analysing the data presented.KeywordsTransitReliabilityIntermodal connectivityService areaAlternative strategies

Diesel-powered, human-driven buses currently dominate public transit options in most U.S. cities, yet they produce health, environmental, and cost concerns. Emerging technologies may improve fleet operations by cost-effectively reducing emissions. This study analyzes both battery-electric buses and self-driving (autonomous) buses from both cost and qualitative perspectives, using the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s bus fleet in Austin, Texas. The study predicts battery-electric buses, including the required charging infrastructure, will become lifecycle cost-competitive in or before the year 2030 at existing U.S. fuel prices ($2.00/gallon), with the specific year depending on the actual rate of cost decline and the diesel bus purchase prices. Rising diesel prices would result in immediate cost savings before reaching $3.30 per gallon. Self-driving buses will reduce or eliminate the need for human drivers, one of the highest current operating costs of transit agencies. Finally, this study develops adoption schedules for these technologies. Recognizing bus lifespans and driver contracts, and assuming battery-electric bus adoption beginning in year-2020, cumulative break-even (neglecting extrinsic benefits, such as respiratory health) occurs somewhere between 2030 and 2037 depending on the rate of battery cost decline and diesel-bus purchase prices. This range changes to 2028 if self-driving technology is available for simultaneous adoption on new electric bus purchases beginning in 2020. The results inform fleet operators and manufacturers of the budgetary implications of converting a bus fleet to electric power, and what cost parameters allow electric buses to provide budgetary benefits over their diesel counterparts.