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Ottawa Mulls Hybrid Busses for 2007 October 2004The City claims that taking the bus is a "greener" way to travel, something hard to believe when watching OC Transpo vehicles belch exhaust onto Ottawa streets, so there's a plan to clear the air. City council has approved the testing of new technology this winter in hopes of getting hybrid buses on Ottawa streets by 2007."They are the way of the future-they are the way of the present, actually," said Councillor Clive Doucet. "The bottom line is that we have to do this. We spent $700 million this year on fuel (for OC Transpo services) and that was with a reduced fleet," he said. He was talking about the 46 bus lines that were cut or reduced in last year's budget. With demands for increased service combined with oil costs of more than $50 U.S. a barrel, Doucet said, "These costs are just going to get worse. The sooner we get these buses, the better." According to Ron Gillespie, the City's director of fleet services, a trial by the National Research Council this winter will look at different types of bus technology to figure out what works best in Ottawa conditions. City Council will decide whether to buy it. Although electric-diesel hybrid buses cost 50 per cent more than the regular diesel kind, Gillespie said some costs would be covered by subsidies from the federal green municipal investment fund, plus the buses would save on maintenance and fuel. Officials estimate hybrid buses would reduce consumption of fossil fuel by about 25 per cent and carbon dioxide emissions by about 38 per cent. When and if all Ottawa buses are converted, the City boasts it will cut 35,000 tonnes of pollution per year. However, David Jeanes, president of Transport 2000, a lobby group for improved transportation in Canada, questioned whether this is the right technology for the City. Hybrid buses work on a combination of battery and diesel power. The diesel part of the engine does not slow down when the bus stops at a red light or a bus stop. Instead, the diesel engine diverts its energy into charging the battery, and battery power pulls the bus away from a stop. This idea is to prevent those ugly clouds of black smoke that regular buses make when they take off. "So hybrids spread the emissions around more evenly. This supposedly makes them more efficient. The stop-start aspect relies on the battery," Jeanes said. "But when you look at the Ottawa Transitway, no other city really has a system set up like that where buses are running at 80 kilometres per hour. At that speed, diesel runs quite well. With hybrid technology at high speeds, the diesel engine is running anyway." He said the studies Ottawa is basing assumptions on are from New York City, which already has several hybrid buses in operation. Although hybrid buses can save on fuel and emissions when running in inner city stop-and-go traffic like New York's, they don't save as much fuel on high speed roads like the Transitway in Ottawa. Jeanes also said there should be more public consultation and explanation of the costs and benefits of a hybrid fleet. He said last March the Toronto transit commission looked into purchasing hybrid buses to comply with Premier Dalton McGuinty's announcement that starting in 2006, at least 66 per cent of its bus purchases would have to be hybrid or alternatively powered. However, after looking into the actual cost of 330 hybrids, Toronto opted for a mixed fleet. Jim Lee, chief of project procurement for the TTC, was unable to say if Toronto would buy any hybrid buses this year. Jeanes did stress that as long as these buses are run on selected inner city routes, this technology is a step in the right direction and other Canadian cities are jumping on the bandwagon. British Columbia has bought hybrids from New Flyer, a Winnipeg company owned by General Motors and plans to have them in operation next spring. Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton and Hamilton have also expressed interest in hybrid buses for their public transportation fleets. SOURCE: Ottawaxpress | ||
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