Branford going all-in on electric buses
School district to start program in July, aims for full fleet in 5 years
Starting in July, some Connecticut students will be boarding quiet school buses that emit no pollutants.
The school district is the first in the state to go to an all-electric fleet, which it will accomplish in five years.
“There was a really comprehensive referendum for our request for proposal that we put in Branford,” said Superintendent of Schools Christopher Tranberg.
“We have active groups in town that are working towards reducing our carbon footprint as much as possible, so that’s certainly something that we cared about, and we’re glad to be able to deliver on through the contract.”
The 2024-25 school year will have all new buses and vans, though just 13 of the 60 will be electrified this year. The rest will still be diesel-powered, Tranberg said.
“Even though we won’t have all electric vehicles, we will have all brand new buses, so every student will be on a brand new bus, whether it’s diesel or electric, to start the school year,” he said.
The buses are coming from Zūm, a San Francisco company founded in 2018 by CEO Ritu Narayan. The company’s buses bring students to and from 4,000 schools from California to Massachusetts. Narayan said the San Francisco district has saved $15 million over five years.
“What we originally had in the RFP was making sure that we were electrified by 2035 because that was what the legislation was at the time,” Tranberg said.
“And Zūm not only offered the most competitive pricing, but they also had the most aggressive timeline guaranteeing that fully electrified fleet within the first five years of the contract.”
Because of the pricing, Branford went with a 10-year, $60 million contract, Tranberg said. Its former contract was with First Student.
“It’s expensive, but it’s better than anything else we had on the table,” he said. “The overall impact on our transportation budget from this school year to next school year, it’s an 8% increase in our transportation line. But after a few years, that’s going to level out, and in public education budgets when you have high predictability what your budget is going to be for any predictable line, that’s helpful.”
In the final five years of the contract, the transportation line will increase 3.5% a year.
But Tranberg also is excited about the technology that comes with the buses.
“I know that going electric is a part of the story, but the other big part of the story is Zūm has some amazing technology with routing technology, as well as accessibility for parents knowing where their students are.”
Parents will have an app that looks like an Uber app that shows where their bus is at all times.
“There’s an ID card that the students scan to get on and off, so (parents) can see if their student is on the bus and they can see where the bus is,” Tranberg said. “And if a student is not going to be on the bus, that bus driver gets that information in real time if the parents indicate that on the app, and the bus can reroute.”
Narayan said that benefits the school district as well.
“We actually significantly increase the safety, reliability, and also reduce the cost for the districts by optimizing the routes and making sure that the commute time for the students are also optimized,” she said.
Narayan said she is bringing school transportation to a non-polluting, digital place.
“Student transportation is an 80-year-old industry,” Narayan said. “Nothing much has changed in this area. Kids pretty much commute the same way … our grandparents did and it’s highly antiquated with very little technology, no transparency.”
Fewer than 2% of the half million school buses in the United States are electrified, Narayan said, “making it very unsustainable and polluting for the children’s health and also for the climate.”
However, almost all will be electrified in the next few years, she said.
Zūm won’t just be providing school buses, Narayan said.
“The district is essentially outsourcing their entire transportation to us and we are the one-stop-shop provider,” she said.
“Zūm buys the buses, Zūm hires the drivers and trains them and manages them on an ongoing basis,” she said. “We manage the yard … we provide the entire technology platform to onboard the parents, to design the route, optimize the route … to do trust and safety, to provide the reports on one single platform.”
One plus of electric buses is how quiet they are, which benefits the students, Narayan said.
“They are very quiet when you sit inside them,” she said. “There is absolutely no noise pollution and children actually notice that immediately. Drivers notice how pleasant the ride is. Teachers notice that they are more prepared to actually participate in the class.”
Students and drivers also are benefiting by not inhaling diesel fumes, which can exacerbate asthma and other respiratory diseases, Narayan said.
“It positively impacts the health of the children and of course it reduces the carbon emission footprint,” she said.
An advantage of the buses is that they are driven during the day and charged overnight, Narayan said.
“By using a software where we are basically interfacing with the utility and any excess power that is left to the battery and there is a peak demand of energy in the community, we can transfer it back to the grid” during the evening.
“And then in the off-peak hours again back in the night we will charge the battery to make sure it’s ready to be up and running for transportation in the morning,” she said.
“And it’s a very unique-use case, I have to say,” Narayan said. “That’s why school buses are the ideal asset to be electrified, and there’s so much attention from the White House and across the country to electrify school buses.”
Also, she said, “they are basically cheaper to maintain in the long run, even though the upfront investment is there for infrastructure, but the fuel cost is lower, the maintenance cost is lower for electric school buses.”
Zūm will be offering its 65 jobs to the current bus drivers, as well as recruiting new drivers, at competitive rates. There will be a hiring event on April 29 at the New Haven Hotel, 229 George St., New Haven.