Forget pumping your own gas — a demonstration showed how quickly a bus can be plugged in from an overhead cable in a matter of seconds to start recharging. Blue and green lights in the bus charging port tell when the cable is connected and charging starts.
“This is a significant milestone in the road map to achieve 100 percent zero-emissions buses, the completion of infrastructure to recharge eight new electric buses,” said Kevin Corbett, chief executive officer of NJ Transit. He and other officials spoke in front of a New Flyer electric bus, similar to the ones that will be running routes in Camden by the end of the year.
Those New Flyer Excelsior buses will be tested in “real world” conditions on routes in and around Camden to collect performance data that will help NJ Transit make decisions on future electric buses and how they are deployed statewide, Corbett said.
In September 2020, NJ Transit’s Board of Directors awarded a $3.235 million contract to Scalfo Electric of Vineland to install electric vehicle charging stations in the Newton Avenue Bus Garage. The work was more complicated than it sounds, requiring the building of a new electric substation to handle the demand of what will ultimately be 16 charging stations in the garage, said Michael Kilcoyne, NJ Transit general manager and president of bus operations.
Camden was also selected for the test to make a dent in the city’s poor air quality, Corbett noted.
“Camden and Newark, those are the first cities we are rolling it out [in],” he said. “Those are communities that are dependent on buses, those are communities with very high asthma rates, it’s a logical place for us to plant our flag.”
Camden County received an “F” grade from the American Lung Association for air quality in the nonprofit organization’s most recent report, said Jeffrey L. Nash, a county commissioner.
“F means our air quality is not good and people are subject to health concerns like asthma that affect children in Camden,” he said, thanking NJ Transit for electric buses that will help solve part of the air quality problem. “Perhaps this first step will move that F toward an A.”
Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation account for about 29% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making it the largest contributor of emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Between 1990 and 2019, emissions in the transportation sector increased more than any other sector, the EPA said.
“It means so much when we’re looking at how to bring environmental justice to our community,” said Camden Mayor Victor Carstarphen. “Today is a win for our city, it will help so many people in our city.”
Lawmakers also were praised for their role in securing funding for the bus electrification effort, specifically U.S. Rep. Donald Norcorss (D-1st Dist.) and Assembly William Moen (D-Camden), vice chairman of the assembly transportation committee, who were at the ceremony.
It takes five to six hours to charge a bus from “empty,” which provides up to eight hours of running time, depending on the battery size, Kilcoyne said. But that running time varies by route length, the terrain and weather, he noted.
The Newton garage will be a laboratory for the rest of NJ Transit when the eight electric buses start rolling and data collection begins of how many miles they travel between charges under actual road conditions and weather conditions, Kilcoyne said.
“They’re rated for 175 miles [between charges], but it takes as much [electricity] to heat them as to propel them, so when it’s cold, we could get significantly less... so 125 to 150 miles,” he said. “Some of the data [that gets collected] is to determine how far they actually go in real-life conditions.”
Similar to driving an internal combustion engine-powered vehicle, mileage between charges also depends on the driver, Kilcoyne said.
“If you’re on the gas, off the gas, you’ll get less distance” between charges, he said.
Drivers also will have to be trained to drive electric buses because they have motors in each wheel, he said. “This is a tech that is improving as we build it out, the 150 miles [battery range] will increase.”
Several speakers noted this is a beginning of a larger sustainability effort. NJ Transit’s board approved a $4.3 million contract with AECOM last week for Final Design and Construction Assistance for Hilton Bus Garage charging infrastructure in Maplewood.
A systemwide survey and assessment of all 16 bus garages will be done under that contract to identify the structural, power and utility, and information technology upgrades necessary to support zero-emissions buses. Part of that is to determine if there is enough electric power to the garage.
The agency also will hold its first workshop this week on Zoom with the public and other stakeholders to develop a broader sustainability plan. The first webinar will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 23. To register for the webinar, go to: https://bit.ly/NJTPublicMtg.
The agency has a mandate from Gov. Phil Murphy to meet — that all new bus purchases will be electric or other zero-emission buses by 2032 and that the bus fleet will be 100% zero emissions by 2040. The timetable to meet the governor’s goal begins with bus deployment at the Newton garage this fall and building charging infrastructure.
©2022 Advance Local Media LLC. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
