Hybrid Buses a Bust in Toronto
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 10.23.08
It is a sad tale: Local bus manufacturer is bought by Daimler, manufactures hybrid bus design that sells well as far away as San Francisco and New York City. But in the home market of Toronto, they don't work well at all. The lead-acid batteries were supposed to last four years and are dying after 18 months, at a rate of 140 batteries per week. They are using only 10% less diesel fuel instead of the 20% to 30% saving that was promised. And they cost almost 50% more to purchase in the first place.
So what is the problem?
Orion in San Francisco via After Gutenberg
It may be the routes they put them on; In Toronto many crowded downtown routes have streetcars and subways, so the buses are used on long suburban routes, whereas hybrids work best in stop and go traffic. That is why they appear to be happy with them in New York, where they are getting the promised diesel savings.
Nobody is happy about the fact that the City is still on the hook to buy another 130 hybrids, but these will be delivered with lithium-ion batteries. But after that, it is back to Daimler "clean diesel." Globe and Mail
Perhaps they should consider bringing back the trolley buses that we had until they cancelled them in 1993. They ran up a primarily residential street a block away from our house and were dead silent, completely non-polluting (not including the pollution from the 30% of our electricity that comes from coal) and the equipment lasted forever. The overhead wires were ugly, but that is a small price to pay for quiet, dependable transport. More at Spacing
More on Trolleys in TreeHugger
Bumper Cars on the Highway
In Seattle, A Ride On The S.L.U.T. Is Good For the Earth
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It is disgusting when governments deliberately misuse green equipment just to make it look bad.
They make themselves look bad.
The commissioner and all persons involved in the mishandling of the TTC need fired.
Electric Streetcars need more use, not less.
Hybrid buses need used here they work best, and that is on routs with lots of stops, not on suburban routs.
The Streetcars used in Toronto are hardly quiet. They have to pump water onto the street to lubricate the wheels as they turn corners in densely populated areas. This makes the tracks slippery when crossing by bike or foot. The tracks are also hazardous to cross by bike in the best of weather. Driving the streetcars down the center lane also requires that traffic stop as the passengers are allowed to depart.
Its hardly a good solution.
Personally I'd like to see electric buses. They can change lanes to allow passengers to depart at the curb, overtake parked cars that would otherwise obstruct a streetcar, and there would be no streetcar tracks to trip up cyclists.
The cold was probably another factor... buses don't get stored overnight in warm buildings, they get left outside. Batteries don't like the cold, and they probably lost a lot of charge overnight.
I always liked the electric buses. My biggest beef with buses (apart from waiting for them in the cold) is always the noise. And electric buses are better than cars that way!
They should use hydraulic accumulators instead of batteries for the energy storage. Much more effective, cheaper, and proven technology.
keep it simple stupid
Battery electric vehicles are great but when it comes to public transportation it is so much easier and cheaper to just have electric buses powered by overhead wires. The planners involved in this must be technically illiterate and horribly uninformed.
What about combining the electric-line-loving trolly car with the batteries of the hybrid? Gives you a vehical that gets charged when under the line, and then can spend some time away from the line? Now you have a vehical that can drive 5 miles with out needing to have overhead lines, and gets power from the cleanest source that is availble, and the one that is the easiest to keep getting cleaner/greener.
I live in San Francisco. One of these buses goes down my street every 20 minutes. While they might be quieter than the older standard diesel buses, they're much noisier than the electric buses that are so common in the City. What I don't like about them is multi-dimensional.
First, the lowered floorboard means that there are NO seats available where the wheels are. This gives the bus only 2/3 the seating capacity of the "standard" (diesel & wired-electrics are approximately equal) buses. So that 20-30% savings become a joke - even if the mileage were 50% better, the people-mile/gallon is less.
Second, again because of the lowered floor, the "35 Eureka" bus (the one that goes by my home) scrapes bottom every time it goes over a nearby hill that the other buses seem to clear easily. I don't know what damage it might be causing to the street, but I'm sure it's not doing the bus any good. And I'm not talking about a crowded bus - I've witnessed the scraping with as few as 5 passengers.
Third, it seems that the power-kill switch is conveniently located on the outside of the bus. It also seems that some kids have figured out where it is and easily disable the bus as it makes its rounds.
Fourth, there's call buttons on every vertical pipe in the bus. Some of those are less than 8" (20cm) apart. WAY too many call buttons for no apparent reason, and WAY too easy to hit them accidentally.
Fifth, the back doors often don't respond to the "touch" that is supposed to make them open. I have, on more than one occasion had to force the door open because it failed to register my pressing on the "press here" tapes. The regular buses, by comparison are either sensitive to a person stepping down to the door, or pressing on vertical bars on the door. Those work reliably, whereas the tapes do not.
Sixth, the front windows (windshield) are asymmetrical and dissimilar. While that is technically NOT a problem, it seems to me to be a less cost-effective solution, requiring manufacture of two separate pieces as well as stocking of two parts where one could have easily sufficed. It's an added, unnecessary cost.
What do I like about the new bus? The LED lighting. Oh, but wait... the older buses are getting retrofits for the same kind of lighting, so I guess that kind of blows that point away. The driver for my route is very pleasant... does that count?