Pure electric buses (EBs) offer an alternative fuel for the nation’s transit bus systems. To evaluate EBs in a transit setting, this project investigated the five electric bus fleet of the StarMetro transit system of the city of Tallahassee, FL. For the study, the implementing strategy, route distances and timings, charging times, fuel economies, impact of chargers, and maintenance and operational characteristics were analyzed. The results were compared to a baseline five diesel bus fleet. The results showed that even with a four-fold improvement in fuel efficiency, the operational costs of electric buses were only 10% lower than that for diesel buses. The results showed that for EBs, the electricity cost due to demand charges was identified to be a major contributor to the electricity cost. To mitigate the high demand charges, researchers developed a method that can reduce the demand charge by optimizing the charging strategy. By using the optimized charging schedule, the demand charges can be reduced by up to 45%.
This report, published annually, summarizes the progress of fuel cell electric bus (FCEB) development in the United States and discusses the achieveme...
This report presents results of the American Fuel Cell Bus (AFCB) Project, a demonstration of fuel cell electric buses (FCEB) operating in the Coachel...
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