The Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) is working with Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (MTD) to deploy their first ten 40’ fuel cell electric buses (FCEBs) and provide support in data reporting and operations, which includes continuing on-going support and data reporting for MTD’s current 60’ FCEBs. In addition, CTE and Transworld Associates (TWA) supported MTD in the bus procurement and build of the 40’ FCEBs. TWA provided inspection quality assurance and quality control inspection services throughout the bus build.
At the start of the project, in December 2022, CTE, MTD, and TWA attended the pre-production meeting at New Flyer in Anniston, AL to review the technical summary and bus contract and warranty for the 40’ FCEBs and tour New Flyer’s Visitor Innovation Center and plant.
CTE supported MTD in preparing for the deployment of 40’ buses in its fleet by working with New Flyer and the station provider, Trillium, to estimate fleet fuel usage, fueling time expectations, and ensure the station control strategy would support the additional 10 buses in the fleet.
CTE is currently generating monthly key performance indicator (KPI) reports for MTD’s current fleet. These reports include metrics on bus and hydrogen station performance and environmental impacts, which help MTD to effectively prepare for the deployment of the 40’ FCEBs. CTE recently developed a dashboard to easily stream this data; this dashboard compiles existing data streams to summarize fleet and station performance over time to provide MTD with a performance overview and progress report of their fleet operations.
MTD’s 40’ FCEBs are in revenue service and CTE is providing KPI reports monthly through the end of 2024.
