In the USA, Washington DC’s Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has just ordered five 40-foot electric buses from Nova Bus and five from New Flyer. The purchase is part of the WMATA plan to fully decarbonise its bus fleets by 2042.
WMATA’s plan to speed up its transition off fossil fuelled buses has been tightened and is now to be three years sooner than previously planned.
The agency will be starting from scratch with a 12-bus pilot program. Here, the buses on order will join two 60-foot articulated electric buses that the agency says will also be part of the its first phase procurement.
To accommodate the new buses, Metro says it will open its first electric bus garage at Northern in 2027. Five of nine Metro garages should be ready for zero-emission buses by 2031 and the remaining by 2041.
Metro says it will initially deploy battery-electric buses, while it says that hydrogen fuel cell technology will continue to be evaluated as the technology evolves. The public transport provider has said it will “end purchases of diesel buses this year and phase out purchases of non-zero-emission buses by 2030.”
smartcitiesdive.com, wmata.com
Keyword: Washington DC starts 1st phase of e-bus orders