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Paving the Road for Zero Emissions Buses

By Carol Rose, PMP, Principal & Senior Engineering Operations Manager

As part of the global mission to address climate change, the transportation sector has emerged as a key lynchpin in reducing greenhouse emissions. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified the nation’s transportation network as the single largest source of greenhouse emissions in the United States.

One of the biggest challenges transit operators face in the transition to zero emission and electric buses is integrating charging stations without creating route delays, changes in efficacy or needless costs.

To address this challenge, STV developed a custom tool that allows our project teams to study bus route factors in a dynamic model. This tool, the Performance Evaluation of Electric bus Routes (PEER), simulates number of stops, passengers, heating/cooling and schedules: everything a bus does on a given route. This allows Transit agencies to better understand how many buses can be replaced right away without impacting the schedule, and accurately estimate how many new buses are needed without impacting the rider schedule.

For any given bus, STV’s PEER energy consumption model factors in kilowatt-hour per mile, expected energy usage and the state of charge status while in operation. This helps us generate data needed to decide how to configure charging infrastructure along each route, while accounting for financial changes and technical advances that may occur over the multi-year fulfilment process.

The PEER tool is how we help clients plan for the future, reduce the transportation sector’s impact on our climate and evolve along with their ridership.