OC Transpo

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

And seemingly just on cue, just yesterday Alexander Dennis announced the BEB version of its North American DD model.

https://www.alexander-dennis.com/media/n...he-enviro500ev-charge-for-north-america/

Great that they will offer an E.V. option. While they are at it, they should work on strengthening the bus's frame and adding air bags to the upper deck front window seats.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

And seemingly just on cue, just yesterday Alexander Dennis announced the BEB version of its North American DD model.

https://www.alexander-dennis.com/media/n...he-enviro500ev-charge-for-north-america/

This was mentioned at the big electric bus announcement. And they said that ADL would be bringing the bus up to Ottawa for a visit.

Now that they are owned by New Flyer will be interesting to see what happens.

[rocketphish]

Transit chair hopes electric bus 'gamble' pays off after sweet deal offered by feds
"Let's wait and see what the technology can do."

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Jun 14, 2021 • 1 hour ago • 3 minute read

OC Transpo has gone from zero to one billion in a matter of two years as it heads for a major transformation of its road fleet, but there are still questions about how the agency will integrate more expensive electric buses.

Coun. Allan Hubley, chair of the transit commission, said the city is taking a “gamble” on the project that would roll out 450 battery-powered buses over five years when Transpo hasn’t even started a test run of the vehicles.

“But I also understand this is a financial opportunity for the taxpayers of Ottawa that isn’t going to sit on the table for too long,” Hubley said in an interview Sunday, describing an “amazing deal” from the federal government to help the city buy electric buses and related infrastructure.

“Let’s wait and see what the technology can do.”

The city’s transportation department recommends going all-in on electric battery power as its zero-emission bus technology through 2027. It would cost $986 million to buy new 40-foot buses, charging equipment, electrical upgrades at the St. Laurent garage and a backup generator powered by natural gas.

Nudging the city into a major overhaul of its bus fleet are new federal programs that would cover the extra costs the city would absorb by transitioning from diesel buses to electric buses. A $400-million loan from the Canada Infrastructure Bank would be paid back from the operational savings Transpo expects to see over the lifespan of the buses. On top of that, Infrastructure Canada could provide up to $493 million.

The transit commission will be asked to endorse the zero-emission bus project on Wednesday before council gives the final authority on June 23.

The city and feds announced the big-money partnership last week and Hubley was there to support the the project, but it wasn’t long ago that the Kanata South councillor voiced skepticism about taking a chance on a new bus technology after a fleet of hybrid buses didn’t achieve the success Transpo wanted.

The city’s move toward electric buses was nearly frozen two years ago when staff wanted to allow for more research and testing by other agencies before considering a test project.

At the time, the city’s sole focus was on launching another electricity-powered transit project, the $2.1-billion Confederation Line LRT system, and Transpo was overwhelmed with shoring up the existing bus system during the rail construction project.

Of course, that didn’t jibe with a 2018 election commitment from Mayor Jim Watson to have an e-bus pilot project, so, with the help of some prodding by councillors like Shawn Menard, Catherine McKenney and Jenna Sudds, transit management decided to get on board.

Hubley said he’s interested to see how the first four fully electric buses handle service when they join operations this fall.

Still, the transit commission and council will consider a large-scale bus conversion with a few unanswered questions.

For one, the city doesn’t know for certain how the electric buses will hold up if they’re stored outdoors in Ottawa’s frigid winter air. Battery manufacturers have told city researchers that cold temperatures impact performance. As staff say in their report to the transit commission, the St. Laurent garage has enough indoor capacity for the buses through 2027, “but some buses will need to be stored outside eventually.”

Also, the city doesn’t have a complete picture of what the long-term maintenance costs will look like for the batteries. There isn’t enough data on the existing, and relatively new, electric bus fleets in other jurisdictions.

Plus, it’s hard to estimate what the cost will be to power the buses. The staff report to the transit commission points out that electricity prices could increase and diesel prices could drop, impacting the city’s ability to pay back the loan with the operational savings. The city still needs to negotiate the final terms of the loan with the infrastructure bank.

The short-term bus conversion might not include articulated and double-decker buses since those options are not yet widely available. Transpo expects to need dozens of replacement articulated buses between 2024 and 2026, while dozens of double-decker buses are scheduled to be replaced in 2027.

On the other hand, the city’s leap into zero-emission buses will be a difference-maker in reducing the municipal government’s greenhouse gas emissions. Council has a goal of eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions produced by the municipal government by 2040. Enviro-friendly buses, along with LRT expansions, have been considered in the city’s targets.

Hubley said he has made sure the zero-emission bus project won’t stymie the city’s plan to extend LRT to Kanata one day.

The city’s long-range financial plan counts on the federal and provincial governments to fully fund future LRT expansions.

[email protected]
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...ays-off-after-sweet-deal-offered-by-feds

[J.OT13]

Those comments bring to mind a certain quote from Allan Hubley himself:

Some of the comments made over the past couple of weeks in the media and on social media are helping to destroy any remaining faith or confidence our ridership has in the system,

His failed leadership on bus electrification is the reason why we haven't have the chance to test electric buses ourselves before this opportunity came along. He's unqualified for the Transit chair job on so many levels.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Those comments bring to mind a certain quote from Allan Hubley himself:



His failed leadership on bus electrification is the reason why we haven't have the chance to test electric buses ourselves before this opportunity came along. He's unqualified for the Transit chair job on so many levels.

Seriously, who calls their own major procurement and fleet transition strategy a "gamble". Great way to inspire confidence.

[Truenorth00]

I argued years ago they needed to buy a couple of buses and run them as a long term test. There are operational lessons that can only come with actually doing something.

This is going to be a cluster....

They are going to ramp from 4 to 74 buses a year in about a year's time. They will barely have depot level infrastructure in place. And they will barely have enough data from deploying the buses on a handful of routes. They won't even have enough buses to fully electrify one route. And the lack of data may well result in overbuying capability.

[J.OT13]

New STO bus route patterns through downtown, two years in the making.


https://twitter.com/OC_Transpo/status/1404820929071484930

https://www.octranspo.com/en/news/article/sto-service-changing-in-ottawa/

[silvergate]

This article had an interesting tidbit about cities adopting wireless charging for electric busses
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/comment...less-charging-pennsylvania-20210610.html

Wireless charging of electric vehicles is already happening, in communities like Wenatchee, Wash., and Chattanooga, Tenn., where fleets of EV buses have been relying upon wireless charging since 2018. These buses merely need to idle for a few minutes over a charging pad embedded in the roadway where the vehicle automatically recharges —receiving just enough new energy to continue operations without being range-limited. The bus never has to leave its route or head back to the garage to plug in, allowing greater efficiency for passengers and saving transit agencies millions of dollars in capital and operational costs.

With Ottawa suddenly starting the shift to electric busses, might be a good optimization to add on

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by silvergate

This article had an interesting tidbit about cities adopting wireless charging for electric busses
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/comment...less-charging-pennsylvania-20210610.html



With Ottawa suddenly starting the shift to electric busses, might be a good optimization to add on

Embedded in the roadway could be an issue due to our snowy weather, but there are overhead options that would likely do the same job. It could be beneficial at major transfer stations and along Transitways. I would love the see the Baseline BRT-lite built for full electric fleet with these kinds of charging stations at Lincoln Fields, Algonquin, Heron and Hurdman.

I understand why the City wants to just start with the basics at the St. Laurent garage, but hope they don't drag their feet on further improvements to the system.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by silvergate

With Ottawa suddenly starting the shift to electric busses, might be a good optimization to add on

It's an interesting idea. I wonder if it's a bit too early for Ottawa to deploy this over the next 5 years. Maybe for the next set of orders post 2025?

I'm not even sure OC Transpo has a fully fleshed out operational concept for electric buses. They've never used them. And they will only have 4 by the end of this year. That's not enough to electrify one route. They are going to have a really steep learning curve just understanding the intricacies of electric bus operations. Let alone trying to figure out the cost-benefits of conductive charging vs. inductive charging are, and the battery capacity vs. opp charger tradeoffs at the route and then the fleet level.

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Embedded in the roadway could be an issue due to our snowy weather....

Do traffic light sensors not work with snow? Inductive power transfer is not all that different from inductive sensor loops.

The main issue with inductive charging is usually the slightly reduced transfer efficiency and the infrastructure cost. Overhead contact charging pantographs and plug in charging capables are mature and relatively cheap to retrofit to existing infrastructure. It's more expensive to do this with inductive charging.

[Truenorth00]

Great coverage by CBC Ottawa on the e-bus program:

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6067736

Other than discussion about the tech and financing there's two points that standout. First, they plan on rejigging routes to match the range (said in there to be 286 km). And next the loan from the CIB has relief built in if projected savings don't materialize.

Not sure how they have a bus range when they don't have a bus selected yet. Unless New Flyer is getting this by default.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Not sure how they have a bus range when they don't have a bus selected yet. Unless New Flyer is getting this by default.

New Flyer was already selected for the first four buses entering service this fall. (The XE40)

The next 74 will be tendered, but they'd presumably have to match or exceed New Flyer's.

[rocketphish]

Transit commission says council should approve $1B e-bus project
Federal funding offsets the extra costs the city would incur by switching to zero-emission buses.

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Jun 16, 2021 • 4 hours ago • 3 minute read

The transit commission on Wednesday endorsed a $1-billion plan to buy hundreds of battery-powered buses as the first major step to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from OC Transpo’s road fleet.

Council needs to provide the final authority on June 23.

A loan from the Canadian Infrastructure Bank and grants from Infrastructure Canada prop up the city’s plan to start converting the bus fleet between 2022 and 2027.

The project to buy 450 e-buses and related infrastructure has a preliminary cost estimate of $986 million. The CIB loan would be $400 million with a one-per-cent interest rate, federal grants would total up to $493 million and the rest would come from the city capital funds already planned for bus purchases.

Council will get an opportunity to sign off on the final funding agreements with the CIB and federal government later this year after negotiations are finished.

John Manconi, the city’s general manager of transportation services, said the zero-emission conversion of Transpo’s fleet wouldn’t be affordable, and probably wouldn’t happen, without the federal funding.

The federal funding offsets the extra costs the city would incur by switching to zero-emission buses.

According to Manconi, the CIB loan wouldn’t have to be paid back if Transpo isn’t seeing operational savings from the e-bus conversion.

The e-buses would be charged at the garage, run the routes in scheduled work blocks and return to the garage for charges. Buses take about four hours to charge. The city would require the e-buses to operate under the same weather conditions as the current diesel buses.

Pat Scrimgeour, the city’s top public transit planner, said Transpo would need to be careful about when to charge buses to avoid peak-time hydro rates.

E-buses would help the city reach its target of eliminated all greenhouse gas emissions created by the municipal government by 2040.

In the past two years, the city moved quickly to study options for a major move to zero-emission buses, especially with federal money up for grabs and an initial acquisition of four e-buses, which will enter operations later this year.

The city nixed natural gas and hybrid buses as possibilities because they wouldn’t be zero-emission. Trolley buses powered by overhead wires were ruled out because of the high cost of infrastructure and complexity of running the lines. Hydrogen fuel cell buses are not yet viable because of logistics and cost, the city concluded.

Transpo’s current bus fleet has 344 40-foot buses, 356 60-foot articulated buses, 151 double-decker buses and 81 Para Transpo mini-buses.

The conversion project has some short-term limitations, requiring the city to first look at replacing 40-foot buses. Double-decker, articulated and Para Transpo e-buses are not yet widely available.

Transpo’s bus fleet could be fully zero-emission by 2036, based on known funding sources. The city is first planning to grow its battery-powered bus fleet through 2027 before assessing further expansion.

The first large purchase under the project would be 74 40-foot e-buses, delivered in 2023.

The charging equipment would by supplied by Hydro Ottawa.

Despite all the environmental benefits from battery-powered buses, they won’t be completely zero-emission on some of Ottawa’s frigid winter days. A small diesel-powered heater would be required in very cold temperatures.

Transpo’s network is slowly making steps to becoming fully electrified, with the $2.1-billion Confederation Line LRT system blazing the trail.

There will be one major piece of Transpo infrastructure that will still depend on diesel fuel: the Trillium Line. However, new trains purchased by the city as part of the Stage 2 expansion are convertible to battery power, if Transpo and council ever want to make the switch.

[email protected]
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...-council-should-approve-1b-e-bus-project

[J.OT13]

Some graphics from the Transit Commission.


https://twitter.com/KatePorterCBC/status/1405227520685916169


https://twitter.com/KatePorterCBC/status/1405180630191779841


https://twitter.com/KatePorterCBC/status/1405176011772383241


https://twitter.com/MathieuFleury/status/1405198926651793408

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

New Flyer was already selected for the first four buses entering service this fall. (The XE40)

The next 74 will be tendered, but they'd presumably have to match or exceed New Flyer's.

I mean I'm curious where they came up with the number because it's pretty random and doesn't line up with brochure numbers. And since they don't have any ebuses in house, where is the experience coming from to get that number?

The XE40 has a 360 km brochure range (with the 320 kWh battery). But other manufacturers can deliver even more. Proterra is capable of putting a whopping 675 kWh on their ZX5. Edmonton got their Proterra Catalyst E2 with 660 kWh packs.

So did OCT just model lower range on the XE40? Are they doing tradeoff studies to choose between lower pack sizes or more en route charging? Why are they talking about reconfiguring routes to cut range when there's clearly options on the market to meet their needs, and smaller operators like ETS are already fielding them?

This is what I mean when I express concern that the lack of experience is going to lead to poor planning. From the looks of it, they are going to be drafting the specs for the 74 buses to be delivered in 2023, before they even have substantial experience with the 4 buses they are getting this year.

It's remarkable that we went from Manconi and Hubley opposing even a trial to full on recapitalization with e-buses, without so much as a thought to the learning curve required.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Some graphics from the Transit Commission.


https://twitter.com/KatePorterCBC/status/1405227520685916169

I remember there were a number of questions about whether or not the size of the fleet for Stage 2 would be big enough, and I guess we have the answer now: No.

I didn't notice it at first since the original report didn't include them, but the last row there is for new trains. 12 in 2026.

It makes sense, just odd that it wasn't clear before.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

I remember there were a number of questions about whether or not the size of the fleet for Stage 2 would be big enough, and I guess we have the answer now: No.

I didn't notice it at first since the original report didn't include them, but the last row there is for new trains. 12 in 2026.

It makes sense, just odd that it wasn't clear before.

I assume that is 12 single length trains or 6 double trains.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I mean I'm curious where they came up with the number because it's pretty random and doesn't line up with brochure numbers. And since they don't have any ebuses in house, where is the experience coming from to get that number?

The XE40 has a 360 km brochure range (with the 320 kWh battery). But other manufacturers can deliver even more. Proterra is capable of putting a whopping 675 kWh on their ZX5. Edmonton got their Proterra Catalyst E2 with 660 kWh packs.

So did OCT just model lower range on the XE40? Are they doing tradeoff studies to choose between lower pack sizes or more en route charging? Why are they talking about reconfiguring routes to cut range when there's clearly options on the market to meet their needs, and smaller operators like ETS are already fielding them?

This is what I mean when I express concern that the lack of experience is going to lead to poor planning. From the looks of it, they are going to be drafting the specs for the 74 buses to be delivered in 2023, before they even have substantial experience with the 4 buses they are getting this year.

It's remarkable that we went from Manconi and Hubley opposing even a trial to full on recapitalization with e-buses, without so much as a thought to the learning curve required.

I'm not sure which brochure you looked at, but this one indicates a ~280km range at 350kWh.

The TTC has some practical data on the range of a few different models as well (including the XE40 and a different Proterra model): https://ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Commission_...nary_Results_of_TTCs_Head_to.pdf#page=45

My understanding is that, with the limited data so far, Proterra's vehicles still experience more issues than NFI, and BYD's are just garbage (as of now). The ZX5 may have more capacity on paper, but the manufacturer and model is still unproven vs New Flyer which, at least for the TTC, has met nearly all requirements for range and reliability. As an entry point for ZEB, New Flyer seems like a very safe bet.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

I'm not sure which brochure you looked at, but this one indicates a ~280km range at 350kWh.

I was looking at this one. Though, I sort of misread it. Looking at page 5 it says this:

The 40’ Xcelsior CHARGE™ has a range of up to 225 miles (466 kWh)* on a single charge, but with on-route, charging range is unlimited

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

The TTC has some practical data on the range of a few different models as well (including the XE40 and a different Proterra model): https://ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Commission_...nary_Results_of_TTCs_Head_to.pdf#page=45

My understanding is that, with the limited data so far, Proterra's vehicles still experience more issues than NFI, and BYD's are just garbage (as of now).

Eh. I wouldn't put Proterra in the bucket as BYD from the TTC report. It's less reliable than the XE40 to be sure. But it did score reasonably in plenty of categories and looks to be trending in the right direction. The takeaway I see from the TTC is not to get BYD buses (or at least this current generation).

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

The ZX5 may have more capacity on paper, but the manufacturer and model is still unproven vs New Flyer which, at least for the TTC, has met nearly all requirements for range and reliability. As an entry point for ZEB, New Flyer seems like a very safe bet.

My point here is that there are clearly products on the market that can give them the range they need to avoid having to rejig routes. So if they are rejigging routes, it's because they have made some kind of trade off decision already. They should be a bit more transparent about that.

Also, if they are giving the impression that New Flyer is a shoe-in, then we don't exactly have a competitive bidding process. We're going to end up paying more.

I really hope they are working with Edmonton. They seem to be the closest in context to what Ottawa would face operating these buses. And hopefully, we can glean some non-proprietary lessons learned from them. I do find it interesting that for whatever struggles the TTC has with their Proterra fleet, ETS seems to be satisfied with their Proterra fleet, at least from my amateur viewpoint.

[Catenary]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I was looking at this one
My point here is that there are clearly products on the market that can give them the range they need to avoid having to rejig routes. So if they are rejigging routes, it's because they have made some kind of trade off decision already. They should be a bit more transparent about that.

Also, if they are giving the impression that New Flyer is a shoe-in, then we don't exactly have a competitive bidding process. We're going to end up paying more.

I really hope they are working with Edmonton. They seem to be the closest in context to what Ottawa would face operating these buses. And hopefully, we can glean some non-proprietary lessons learned from them. I do find it interesting that for whatever struggles the TTC has with their Proterra fleet, ETS seems to be satisfied with their Proterra fleet, at least from my amateur viewpoint.

I think they misused the work "route" and are instead referring to runs, the actual sequence of routes that a bus will operate throughout the day, possibly with multiple drivers. Right now, a bus might leave the garage at 4am and not return until the early morning the next day.

Nova will be the other manufacturer of course. They focused on short-range with on-route charging to start, but have released a long-range bus since the TTC started their trial. They certainly aren't an upstart company either.