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Originally Posted by Truenorth00
And it can be as simple as "this type of bus only works on urban routes so we'll deploy all our BEBs in central Ottawa and operate out of the St. Laurent bus depot only".
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The St. Laurent depot serves more than just central Ottawa, but that kind of strategy could work.
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I've actually done some grad work on electrification. The pace of progress is akin to computers in the mid-90s and smartphones in the early 2000s. We absolutely can get there in a half decade. Better thermal management, for example, limits range loss substantially. Which is why I said 200km at -40C today. In 5 years, we should expect that to be 300 - 400 km @ -40C as both battery chemistry and pack management improves. I find it hard to believe that buses regularly going to stations can't operate with even a 200km winter range when they have the opportunity to regularly top up.
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Taking a line from the financial world, "past performance is not an indicator of future success." I remember talking to people (typically software folk) who believed Moore's law was a law of physics and could not be broken. Obviously the laws of physics show that Moore's law had to come to an end eventually (which it did around 2012). While there is certainly room for improvement with battery technology, it's rapid progress will certainly come to an end eventually.
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Also. As JohnnyRenton pointed out they are already doing trials in Winnipeg. And I'd offer up Moscow as an example. I think you'll agree they have a similar climate. They're inducting hundreds of electric buses with the goal of going to only electric procurement by 2021:
https://eurasianetwork.eu/2018/05/17...ext-september/
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Not sure about Moscow, but Winnipeg did it by restricting the buses to one route and having chargers at both terminates. We could also do something like that, but we would need to find a route that isn't going to change when Stage 1 and 2 are complete to ensure that we have historical data to compare the results to. That limits the options considerably.
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Ottawa has a unique operational environment with both its climate, mix of urban and highly rural routes and operating speeds from urban to highway. This requires local trials. You can't just draw conclusions looking at TTC data.
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In the short term, yes. But our "operational environment" is changing though. I don't see the value of testing under conditions that won't exist in the near future. The scientific method requires that you perform your tests under a controlled environment, and Ottawa will be anything but a controlled environment over the next decade.
I will say it again, I am not opposed to electric buses, but I don't want to get to the end of the study and draw conclusions based on an environment that no longer exists. If the technology was ready for full deployment and the proposal was for that, I would be more supportive, but a local, live study doesn't make sense. Let other cities that aren't in the middle of a massive transit infrastructure transition do the studies.