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Are current US bus sizes right-sized? Perhaps we need smaller buses on more interesting routes. Really large buses with mega-batteries (possibly literally meg

Are current US bus sizes right-sized? Perhaps we need smaller buses on more interesting routes. Really large buses with mega-batteries (possibly literally megawatt sized) seems impractical compared to natural gas. However, 10 passenger shuttles, and more of them, might be practical. If the operating costs can be lower with electric, then that should free up budget to hire more drivers to drive more routes to drive better utilization, etc.

TremendousJudge 7y ago
More buses means more drivers, and salaries are probably the biggest expense here
- novok 7y ago
  Self driving buses on fixed routes with special infrastructure put in by the city to help out might be the lynch pin here.
  - fooblitzky 7y ago
    Self-driving buses might be great, but there's no point in waiting for them to be invented when there are such large gains to be made today from better and more frequent bus service, and increased efficiency/reduced pollution (from both ICE and electric buses).
    - linuxftw 7y ago
      I completely agree. Instead of adding to the ever-expanding pavement, we could use that money smarter for free or greatly reduced public transit, and tons of it.
    - novok 7y ago
      It's not about waiting for them to be invented, but making them cheap enough to buy. And by cheap enough, I'm including labor. As for the size of transit budgets, and how incompetent most American transit agencies are, that's another orthogonal issue.
Robotbeat 7y ago
Megawatt(-hour) isn't impractical. It shouldn't be strange that a bus needs significantly more energy storage than a car that might use 100kWh. And Megawatt peak power isn't much, either. A decent Tesla has half a megawatt peak power. A bus on hilly routes or for highway speeds could and maybe should have double that. Charging infrastructure needs to be done right, though. To make >1 Megawatt charging work well takes some careful thought. But it's not ultimately harder than a few fast DC chargers ganged together (probably need battery backing to make the peak charging cost lower, but ultimately, if you have lots of buses charging a lot, it's not super surprising if you need a good grid connection... but that's half of why you pay for electricity, so that's ultimately not a problem, either). That's actually a valid option.
Merrill 7y ago
To replace autos, buses need to have routes and frequencies that satisfy the larger travel purposes: 30% social/recreational 19% to/from work 16% other family/personal errands 14% shopping 6% work-related business 6% school/church 9% other https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/transportation_statistics_annual_report/2016/tables/ch2/fig2_1 https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/transportation_stat...

TremendousJudge 7y ago

More buses means more drivers, and salaries are probably the biggest expense here

novok 7y ago
Self driving buses on fixed routes with special infrastructure put in by the city to help out might be the lynch pin here.
- fooblitzky 7y ago
  Self-driving buses might be great, but there's no point in waiting for them to be invented when there are such large gains to be made today from better and more frequent bus service, and increased efficiency/reduced pollution (from both ICE and electric buses).
  - linuxftw 7y ago
    I completely agree. Instead of adding to the ever-expanding pavement, we could use that money smarter for free or greatly reduced public transit, and tons of it.
  - novok 7y ago
    It's not about waiting for them to be invented, but making them cheap enough to buy. And by cheap enough, I'm including labor. As for the size of transit budgets, and how incompetent most American transit agencies are, that's another orthogonal issue.

Robotbeat 7y ago

Megawatt(-hour) isn't impractical. It shouldn't be strange that a bus needs significantly more energy storage than a car that might use 100kWh. And Megawatt peak power isn't much, either. A decent Tesla has half a megawatt peak power. A bus on hilly routes or for highway speeds could and maybe should have double that. Charging infrastructure needs to be done right, though. To make >1 Megawatt charging work well takes some careful thought. But it's not ultimately harder than a few fast DC chargers ganged together (probably need battery backing to make the peak charging cost lower, but ultimately, if you have lots of buses charging a lot, it's not super surprising if you need a good grid connection... but that's half of why you pay for electricity, so that's ultimately not a problem, either). That's actually a valid option.

Merrill 7y ago

To replace autos, buses need to have routes and frequencies that satisfy the larger travel purposes: 30% social/recreational 19% to/from work 16% other family/personal errands 14% shopping 6% work-related business 6% school/church 9% other https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/transportation_statistics_annual_report/2016/tables/ch2/fig2_1 https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/transportation_stat...