It’s been awhile since I last wrote! In case you’re new, I am a zero emissions bus (ZEB) advocate here in Portland, Oregon. I worked for my state’s public transit division almost a decade before catching the ZEB bug, cordially leaving the agency, and launching this newsletter. I’m driven by concerns about climate, social equity and community health, and my goal is to accelerate the transition from diesel to electric buses. (Note: I do some work for Center for Transportation and the Environment – CTE – a nonprofit with deep ZEB experience. But this newsletter is my own effort.)
In my last piece, I urged that we build a bridge between public transit and the school bus world, for crucial learning and information-sharing on ZEB’s. I started organizing a phone meeting for that purpose. But over some weeks, I realized this needs more than a phone meeting, and should be led not just by one person, but by an organization.
The outcome is that CTE and I will hold a free, three-part webinar series this spring on zero emissions buses, for both school bus and public transit people, with topics like Funding, Buses and Charging Infrastructure. Watch for the first invitation in a future newsletter.
These are the first five of my top ten tips on electrifying a bus fleet, designed largely for bus organizations but also for the utilities, state agencies and advocates that play key roles in the transition to electric.
1. Be obsessed with learning about zero emissions buses (ZEB’s). They are complex and not easy to deploy, so information and collaboration are your friends. Don’t ingestfalse myths, or assume ZEB’s are only for the big cities (they’re not). Your goal is to prepare for a pilot project, or if you’re already doing a pilot, to build a plan to scale up to a full fleet transition. Test-drive some ZEB’s if possible. Bookmark a few dozen websites; register for newsletters; put ZEB’s on agendas for meetings. Build your internal business case for them. Get smarter every day on the ZEB ecosystem.
2.) Weave diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) into your ZEB project from the start. Do this by bringing the right people in your community to the table, such as nonprofits that represent people of color and/or low income people. Listen to their thoughts and concerns. Don’t ask the one person of color in your organization to carry this flag. Resist the urge to skip right now to #3. Why should you follow my advice on this?
Of many reasons, I’ll offer three: a.) bus passengers (without whom no bus-related jobs would exist) are disproportionately people of color; b.) these passengers are breathing toxic diesel fumes far more than the general population, while getting less access to health care, and they deserve to be heard; c.) without inclusive discussion early on, you can be blindsided later by stakeholders angry to learn of expensive ZEB purchases when their basic transportation needs are going unmet. Which is a reality for many people, despite your best efforts at route-planning. Try to not be defensive about that.
You can do this! Don’t just check the DEI box by sending an FYI email to someone. Rather, collaborate early on.
3.) Learn about ZEB charging infrastructure, often called EVSE for electric vehicle supply equipment. EVSE is less fun, sexy and charismatic than the electric buses themselves (don’t spend all your time looking at those!:). Your charging equipment can take as long to plan and install as your bus takes to get built. “It’s a construction project, one you’ve never done before,” a ZEB fleet manager advises.
Here is one primer on chargingequipment, written for school buses, but with broadly useful facts on everything from kilowatt hours (kWhs) to ports to charging time requirements at levels 1, 2 and direct/fast charge. Plan to manage your charging to get your hoped-for fuel savings. To do that effectively, you’ll needa separate meter for your ZEB’s.
4.) Seek funding. Funding is a big topc, and will be the sole focus of one of CTE’s three ZEB webinars coming up this spring. Briefly, if you are public transit, FTA’s Low-No Emission program is a typical entry point. Notice of funding and application here; Low-No applications are due March 17, 2020. Despite the name, only zero-emissions (battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell) bus project applications have received awards in recent years.
If you work with school buses, states like Washington and Colorado have named electric school buses as intended projects for their Volkswagen mitigation funding. While Oregon has not, its Clean Fuels Program (CFP) and SB 1547 have led utilities like PGE and Pacific Power to create grant programs for which electric buses are eligible. All Oregon utilities receive CFP funds; you and community advocates could encourage your utility to invest those funds in the delta (differential cost) between diesel and electric buses.
5.) Build your relationship with your utility. I beat this drum a lot, because it’s the best music in town. Go further: educate yourself on vehicle to grid (V2G) services, a new song that utilities are understandably excited about. Start with an overview/summary like this one. V2G is more relevant to school bus fleets than public transit fleets, because they have much more downtime in which their battery-packs can potentially feed power back into the electric grid.
5.) a.) Finally, If you work for a utility, I suggest not just that you build relationships with the bus organizations in your territory, but actively help them learn about transportation electrification. One way you might do that is to provide some scholarships for bus people to attend key conferences. Keep in mind that not just transit agencies but school districts have notoriously tight budgets, and that it would never work to try to sacrifice class sizes or teachers’ salaries for electric school bus purchases. Profitable investor-owned utilities (IOU’s) in particular could be great partners here.
Next month I’ll send out Part 2, with more tips for electrifying your bus fleet, including information on good upcoming conferences. If you have suggestions or comments on what you’d like to hear about, feel free to reply to this email.
Alison Wiley (she/her/hers)
I am on the ancestral lands of the Multnomah, Chinook and Cowlitz peoples.Whose land are you on?