More Cities Jumping on the Hybrid Bus Bandwagon

hybrid electric bus
Image courtesy of Aaron Gustafson via flickr

Even the prospect of a $100,000 plus price hike has proven insufficient in deterring public transit agencies from snatching up orders for diesel-electric hybrid buses. As USA Today's Jordan Shrader reported yesterday, the list of major cities to lap up hybrid bus fleets has seen its number increase by 4, with Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Minneapolis and St. Paul recently ordering more than 1,700 new buses.

The two biggest competitors offering the hybrid bus systems are GM and BAE Systems - which recently sold another 850 to NYC's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (itself no stranger to clean air buses); GM has currently sold almost 1,000 systems to transit systems in over 70 communities while BAE Systems has sold over 1,100 units to transit systems in 6 U.S. and Canadian communities.

According to the American Public Transportation Association's (APTA) 2007 survey, hybrids still only account for about 2-3% of buses in its members' fleets; that number is likely to drastically increase over the coming year, with the survey noting that 22% of new bus orders were hybrids.

Hybrid buses in two cities - NYC and Seattle - recently got kudos from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for having better fuel economy than conventional diesel buses. Those in NYC got 34% more miles per gallon - 3.19 mpg - and those in Seattle got 27% more - 3.17 mpg.

Via ::USA Today: More cities get on board with hybrid buses (newspaper)