CNG News
The Birmingham News
TRANSIT WANTS TO REPLACE BUS FLEET
Considers natural gas buses for $40 million
By: Jeff Hansen
People who depend on public transportation in metro Birmingham are forced to ride buses that are largely worn out and increasingly unreliable.
The fleet has vehicles operating beyond their designed life span, buses that can't climb over Red Mountain, buses with broken air conditioners, and mix of diesel and compressed natural gas engines that drive up the cost of complexity of repairs. That is why the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority hopes to scrap its old fleet of 75 fixed-route bused and replace them with 100 new compressed natural gas buses at a cost of $40 million, under a plan the authority approved last week.
TRANSIT PLAN
- PLAN: To buy 100 new compressed natural gas buses
- TOTAL COST PROJECTION: $40 million (about $400,000 per bus)
- FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS SHARE: $32 million
- LOCAL MATCHING FUNDS: $8 million
These new buses would be more reliable, said David Hill, executive director of the authority. And expenses for maintenance and repair will be lower, because the uniform fleet will come from a single manufacturer, similar to the way Southwest Airlines flies only Boeing 737 jets.
"This will create a dependable system," Hill said.
A dependable system, experts say, will yield a major payoff-increased passengers.
Mantill Williams, spokesman for the American Public Transportation Association, a Washington trade association, said he often is asked how to use marketing to boost ridership. That's the wrong question, he replies.
"The simple way to increase ridership is to make it available, make it reliable," he said. "If it's frequent, consistent, available, reliable to use- ridership will grow."
The BJCTA plans to purchase its new fleet using two streams of money: $8 million paid from the doubling of Birmingham's business license fees; and $32 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Transit Administration.
The current federal transportation bill, which provides $286 billion in transportation funding from 2004-2009, includes $100 million earmarked for bus rapid-transit along the Interstate 65 corridor, but that is separate from the transit authority's plan for a new fleet. Hill plans to go to Washington in March and ask the Alabama delegation for help in nailing down federal money.
The new buses should be put out for bid by spring, Hill said. Most will be 30-foot buses that seat 26 to 28 people, along with some 35- or 40 foot buses. The BJCTA will also ask bidders for an option to buy another 100 or 200 additional buses in the future, Hill said.
The goal is a new fleet on the road by Oct. 1, 2009. "If you build it…'
Hill said he expects three pluses from the new buses: a standardized fleet, fuel cost savings and, most important, improved service.
A standardized fleet reduces maintenance costs because mechanics won't need the different technical manuals, tools and spare parts that now use the BJCTA's mixed fleet. Mechanic training and switching out buses when one needs service also are simplified.
The new buses will all run on compressed natural gas and will use the authority's CNG fueling facility.
"CNG is cheaper than diesel fuel," Hill said, "and it's the cleanest burning fuel."
The BJCTA currently buys diesel fuel at $2.92 a gallon and CNG at $1.43 a gallon.
About 22 percent of all new transit bus orders are for vehicles powered by natural gas, and 125 transit agencies in the U.S. are operating CNG buses, according to Natural Gas Vehicles for America, a Washington trade group.
A natural gas bus may cost $30,000 to $40,000 more to purchase compared to a diesel model, but that is quickly paid back through lower operating costs, said Rich Kolodziej, president of the trade group. Much of the extra cost is the expensive fuel tank that can hold natural gas compressed to 3,600 pounds per square inch, he said.
Hill said the CNG buses could cost as much as $50,000 more per bus than diesel.
The larger fleet- 100 new buses replacing 75 old buses- will allow more frequent service on current routes and the addition of new routes. Better service, Hill said, should lead to increased ridership.
Tom Peacock, director of technical services for the American Public Transportation Association, said he is unsure whether CNG would yield great fuel savings, but did think a standardized fleet could cut some maintenance costs.
Environmental concern is the mail reason transit agencies give for buying CNG buses, he said.
Peacock did agree that the only way to boost ridership is improved service. "It's kind of, 'If you build it, the will come'"
Metro Birmingham transit customers, said Hill, "have suffered over the years by not having a reliable system." Current bus service is so poor, he said, that now a number of people will have a car but want to ride on buses, drive their cars.
"We have buses that were 12-year buses' (have a life expectancy of 12 years) that are going on 14 years."
And the authority's 43 Orion buses- more that half of its 75-bus fleet- turned out to have multiple problems which cause breakdowns, Hill said.
"They are a defective fleet and just not reliable," he said.