CDTA will be hitting road with Quebec electric buses
Field tests will address battery operation, amount of energy
Electric buses now being tested in Montreal might start rolling in the Capital Region under a pilot program being eyed by the Capital District Transportation Authority.
“We want to work with other systems that are testing these buses, and learn together,” said CDTA CEO Carm Basile.
The authority expects to reach an agreement with Quebec officials that will see up to five of the Canadian-made buses, which Quebec officials put into trials this summer, arrive in the Capital Region within the next 12 to 18 months.
Such testing would also have to address how the battery-powered buses would be recharged, and whether the CDTA bus yard on Watervliet Avenue has sufficient electrical service to handle that requirement, Basile added.
He met on the bus project last week with state Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos and Jean-claude Lauzon, the New York-based delegate general for the province of Quebec. The authority has also met with utility National Grid on the project, Basile added.
Quebec’s all-electric buses are part of a $12 million project to determine how the buses perform in the city, which has extremely cold winters, Lauzon said. Quebec will also be seeking partnerships with other public transit systems in New York, he said.
Earlier this summer, Montreal and the adjoining city of Laval ordered 40 electric buses, which are built by New Flyer Industries Canada. It is the largest order of electric buses in Canada. Test
runs are expected to start in the two cities next spring.
Nova Bus, a Quebec company, also announced a contract to supply four electric buses to Montreal.
Basile said the cost of the CDTA pilot program could be supported by the Clean NY Transportation Initiative, which calls for increasing electric vehicle use by using some of the $127.7 million Volkswagen settlement received by the state.
CDTA runs a fleet of about 300 diesel and diesel-electric hybrid buses.
In October 2016, a federal judge approved a national settlement plan to address Volkswagen’s installation and use of devices in more than 500,000 Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche vehicles that circumvented federal emissions standards for nitrogen oxides, which can form smog and trigger respiratory problems.
The companies installed emissions control defeat device software in cars from model years 2009 through 2016, which allowed emissions up to 40 times the certification standard.