In a brief report to the transportation committee the following week, staff concluded that the four electric buses in the pilot project had met the City of Ottawa’s expectations and that the technology was indeed a good alternative to diesel.
OC Transpo engineers have found that New Flyer XE40 electric buses have no problem handling the workload placed on city diesel bus drivers over the past year.
According to them, these buses regularly operate on routes lasting more than 10 hours and covering more than 200 kilometers.
The test results come as the City of Ottawa approved a multi-year, multi-billion dollar purchase of 350 electric buses to modernize OC Transpo’s fleet and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The city plans to buy 26 vehicles this year, but will have to wait until the Toronto Transit Commission announces the winner of its zero-emission bus proposal.
Initially hesitant to try the technology, the former city council ordered four buses and then committed to purchasing only electric buses before local trials began in 2021.
Once the buses arrived, they were tested on streets without passengers for several months, starting in December 2021.
The first electric bus will begin transporting passengers in February 2022. OC Transpo did not take all four buses out of service last year as it trained operators and kept the buses parked during the winter break.
Engineers studied various issues such as energy consumption, the distance the buses can travel on a single charge, and defects that could cause the buses to fail.
They described how buses use more energy in the fall and spring when their electric heaters are running. The diesel auxiliary heater switches on when the temperature drops below 5°C.
“Temperature conditions can reduce the efficiency of electric buses by up to 24%, but electric buses still meet minimum distance requirements,” they wrote.
Engineers simulated different passenger loads by placing water containers on bus seats. They found that a fully loaded bus requires a 15% increase in load on the traction motor – the largest energy consumer in an electric bus – and said they will continue to monitor the impact of passenger load on efficiency.
OC Transpo equipped the test buses with chargers, as well as two pantograph chargers. There have been some failures with these ceiling systems, although in the power cabinets rather than the pendants, and the city is trying to resolve the issue with the supplier.
Engineers also carried out special winter testing during a snowstorm in January 2022, when almost 50 centimeters of snow fell.
They stopped the bus on several hills, carried out limited plowing without salting and reported that the electric bus was not stuck.
As for drivers, ratings showed they were mostly satisfied, but found the steering wheel to be smaller than they were used to.
Post time: Oct-11-2023