Hybrid bus now on a route near you
Metro's prototype hybrid diesel-electric bus was tested
on Route 41 last week.
Bus No. 2599 – Metro Transit's experimental hybrid diesel-electric bus – is earning the nickname "Energizer Bunny," as it continues making its rounds over and over again along King County bus routes.
Since early October, Metro has been testing, poking, prodding, and peering into the guts of the bus to see if this kind of hybrid would make a good replacement for the fleet of aging buses currently serving the downtown transit tunnel.
"We just finished a 90-day stress test on Coach 2599, during which we accumulated more than a year's worth of mileage (37,600 miles) with containers of water that equaled the weight of a full, standing load of passengers (11,000 lbs.)," said Todd Gibbs, hybrid bus project manager. "So far, the bus has performed remarkably well."
More than a dozen transit operators were used to drive the hybrid 20 hours a day, seven days a week in simulated service, including trips through the bus tunnel. The remaining four hours each day were used by the maintenance staff at Metro’s Central Base for fueling, repairs and scheduled maintenance.
For the past two weeks, Metro has put Coach 2599 into regular service to see how it handles people rather than tubs of water. During the first two weeks of March, it served on Route 71 and 41. This week, it will carry passengers on Route 101 between Seattle and Renton. Then, the road tests finish up next week with service on Route 255 on the Eastside.
"The passengers we’ve surveyed really seem to like it," said Jim Boon, Metro’s manager of vehicle maintenance. "They are noticing the low-floor entry, and how clean and quiet the bus is."
Boon and Gibbs say the reaction from bus drivers and mechanics is also positive.
"The operators have expressed their pleasure in its performance, and the staff at Central Base is amazed at how little maintenance the bus has required," said Gibbs.
The big bus works much like the small hybrid cars that are becoming popular. In the bus, electricity is generated by a computer-managed diesel engine. That electricity is stored for future use, and can reduce fuel consumption by 20 to 40 percent. The hybrid bus is also extremely clean when it does burn the ultra low-sulfur diesel that Metro uses in all its vehicles. Carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons are reduced by as much as 99 percent when this fuel is used.
During the first testing phase, only three problems cropped up that kept the bus from maintaining its 400-plus mile-per-day average. Two were unrelated to 2599's hybrid technology, and the third was easily repaired with a simple replacement part.
Boon said that when the road testing with passengers ends in March, 2599 will undergo even more intense scrutiny. The bus will be disassembled so the drive system can be thoroughly inspected by staff from Metro and Allison Transmission, the manufacturers of the drive system.
"No bus like this has ever been under this kind of duty before," said Boon. "We want to see how all the internal parts are holding up."
He said if everything looks okay, the bus will be reassembled and put back on the road. Metro is in the market for more than 200 hybrid buses and hopes to award a contract in late August. The made-to-order hybrid fleet would then begin arriving at Metro sometime in the spring of 2004.
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