Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
134 10.1 Overview The ZEB industry is still maturing, and new technological advancements are frequently emerging. These advancements will improve operational efficiency, vehicle safety, and durability. Ultimately, industry innovations will allow for a more straightforward replacement of conventionally fueled buses with ZEBs and will provide necessary information, tools, and resources for transit agencies to support full fleets of ZEBs. Approaches and workarounds used for smaller ZEB deployments will likely be cost- prohibitive or overly cumbersome if applied to large deployments. While bus components and software will see improvements, the most valuable growth will be the knowledge that the transit industry and its stakeholders gain as the number of ZEBs in service grows. Real-life deployment data will provide an understanding of how ZEB technology will perform under various climate conditions, operating profiles, driving styles, and service areas. As emerging opportunities are not mature enough for established best practices, the following sections provide general information on potential trends and advancements in the ZEB industry. Transit agencies deploying ZEBs should research and consider technologies that may positively impact their deployment or long- term ZEB goals. PHASE 10 EMERGING OPPORTUNITIES
Emerging Opportunities 135 10.2 Key Stakeholder Considerations Project Managers ⢠Stay on top of industry news to be able to speak to new advancements with OEMs and to know what your options are for future procurements. ⢠Your transit agency may be the first to pilot new technology. Plan for adequate testing of the new features if this is the case. ⢠Engage with transit industry colleagues and stakeholders to share deployment data and lessons learned. ⢠Remain informed of new standards and mandates that will impact your transit agencyâs requirements for deploying ZEBs. Operations, Maintenance, and Facilities ⢠Support the data collection and analysis efforts to share your transit agencyâs experiences with transit industry colleagues and stakeholders. Review available deployment data from other transit agencies located in a similar climate or that provide similar service as your transit agency. ⢠Future advancements may include tools that provide decision support to dispatch, providing more detailed insight into bus performance and available range. ⢠Future advancements may include charge management solutions for large fleets of ZEBs, which may improve or streamline current charge management strategies. Procurement ⢠Ensure contract terms address appropriate procedures to test and understand new features that your transit agency may be piloting. ⢠Industry standards for cost principles may impact how capital, maintenance, and operations costs are tracked. ⢠New mandates for ZEB requirements may impact your transit agencyâs fleet composition and procurement requirements. External Stakeholders ⢠Share deployment data and lessons learned with other transit agencies through trade associations, conferences, or direct contact. ⢠Reach out to bus and fueling infrastructure OEMs to learn more about new components and features.
136 Guidebook for Deploying Zero-Emission Transit Buses 10.3 Emerging Research Areas Keeping track of ZEB industry news can feel overwhelming. The sections below highlight current areas of focus for the ZEB industry. Monitoring these areas will ensure that you stay abreast of ZEB-related technological advancements as well as valuable ZEB deployment data from transit agencies around the world. 10.3.1 Fleetwide Charge Management As described in Phase 2 Technology Selection and Specifications and Phase 4 Fueling Infrastructure Strategy and Cost, charge management allows transit agencies to establish a charging protocol that minimizes energy costs while still meeting all service requirements. For smaller BEB deployments, charge management may be as simple as limiting the time of day when most charging occurs or timing buses to charge sequentially as opposed to simultaneously. These initial solutions may rely on staff hours to manually plug and unplug buses or move buses around the yard. With an entire fleet of BEBs, charge management will be more difficult but also much more important as your transit agency faces multi-MW power demands. At scale, minimizing the amount of infrastructure and maximizing its usefulness can significantly reduce capital and operational costs. A robust, facility-wide solution for charge management that allows flexible operation of an entire fleet of BEBs will be needed. Software solutions to control chargers based on service needs, schedule requirements, power limitations, and on-peak electric utility times are under development but are not yet available for all chargers and all bus OEMs. Close coordination with your electric utility when developing a charge management solution is critical. Your electric utility will also provide necessary input to inform electrical infrastructure needed to support full fleets of ZEBs. The point at which your transit agency needs significant generation capacity will vary by location and by the type of utility serving you. 10.3.2 MW+ Charging As of early 2020, very high-power charging of over one megawatt (MW+) is being implemented for the heavy-duty trucking industry. MW+ charging capabilities may be coming to the transit industry as well. High-power and high-speed charging will benefit applications that require Transit agencies will also need to address the logistical challenges of the equipment necessary to support an entire fleet of BEBs. Include a lifecycle cost analysis of the various approaches to charging logistics in a fleet transition plan, including automated overhead charging, overhead gantry of plug-in charging cables, and labor costs for staff to plug in buses.
Emerging Opportunities 137 complete recharging to occur in a matter of minutes as opposed to hours. This approach to charging will allow BEB fueling to operate on a similar time scale to conventionally fueled vehicles. Battery improvement will be needed as the high-voltage batteries used in BEBs in 2020 will most likely not be able to support MW+ charging anytime soon. MW-scale charging also poses unique infrastructure and construction challenges that are still in research. The demand for electric vehicles, as well as recent reductions in the cost of lithium-ion batteries has resulted in large investments in the battery technology industry. These investments will likely result in cost-competitive transit applications and open doors for applications of other battery technologies (Tyson et al., 2019). Lower battery costs and higher energy density would be a âgame changerâ for the BEB industry, as increased range and lower initial capital costs will make BEBs more competitive with conventionally fueled buses. The open question for the industry is: how much energy will the battery pack ultimately need to store and how fast will it need to charge to be a straightforward, 1:1 replacement for a conventionally fueled bus? The targets for these advancements and the timeline for their potential implementation are not clear. The industry may never be able to meet these goals and BEBs may never be a 1:1 replacement for diesel buses, giving fuel cell buses a market advantage. However, due to the advantages and challenges of each technology, the industry will most likely end up with both FCEBs and BEBs in large numbers in transit. 10.3.4.1 Bus Performance Data 10.3.3 Battery Improvements 10.3.4 Deployment Information Bus deployment data from transit agencies around the country will be critical to help spur industry improvements and to support the expansion of applications of ZEBs. This data will provide insight into bus performance in various climate conditions, operating profiles, driving styles, and service areas. Performance data for how a BEB performed in a service area in a similar climate or operating profile to you will provide direct information that can inform future ZEB deployments. Trade associations like ZEBRA provide an open forum to allow transit agencies to share information about ZEB deployments. Membership in ZEBRA is offered to transit agencies only and CTE provides technical support so agencies can openly share their experiences with ZEBs.
138 Guidebook for Deploying Zero-Emission Transit Buses Consider sharing deployment data that your transit agency collects to support other transit agencies. Phase 9 Data Monitoring and Evaluation has more information on what data collection and analysis activities will best inform performance tracking. Since the ZEB industry is still maturing, there are not many ZEBs that have been in revenue service long enough to fully understand battery degradation throughout the entire useful life of the batteries. Anecdotal evidence of battery performance can be confusing or misinformed, and published data can be complicated and easy to misinterpret. Battery data for both BEBs and FCEBs across various climates and duty cycles will inform how battery warranties and costs are structured in the future. Many warranties on the energy storage system cover the batteries to a certain capacity for 6 or 12 years, or over a specified kWh throughput, but the timing and frequency of mid-life battery replacements are unknown. The cost of mid-life battery replacements can be significant and must be factored into the lifecycle costs of the bus. Procedures for testing usable battery capacity and battery state of health vary widely across different bus and battery OEMs, making it difficult for a transit agency to know with certainty how much their batteries are degrading over time. The transit industry needs a clear standard or definition for determining battery state of health, and measuring battery SOC. 10.3.5 Decision Support for Dispatch The costs per mile for BEBs, FCEBs, and conventionally fueled buses may guide operational decisions. However, ZEB maintenance costs outside of the warranty period are not yet well understood. The industry will not know if the assumption that maintenance costs will be lower for ZEBs is valid until more data is available. The industry needs standardized principles for cost reporting that address capital costs as well as operational and maintenance costs. As of early 2020, transit agencies are relying heavily on bus SOC and estimated range based on average energy efficiencies to make dispatch decisions. Decision-support tools for dispatch and other transit agency operational staff offer better solutions to manage large fleet of BEBs. These tools will continue to improve but show the promise of evaluating estimated range based on current climate conditions, and the recent performance of specific drivers and buses.
Emerging Opportunities 139 Automated driving systems (ADS) have the potential to increase vehicle safety, improve operating efficiency, and provide greater accessible service to customers. Vehicle automation already exists in some form in light-duty and heavy-duty markets, including: ⢠Lane keeping assistance, ⢠Adaptive cruise control, and ⢠Automatic emergency braking. Automation of transit buses will likely be a gradual process; full automation will not occur overnight. Potential shorter-term transit applications that provide significant driver assistance include traffic signal integration and automated docking for charging, and platooning. The FTA developed a 5-year Strategic Transit Automation Research (STAR) Plan that outlines research and demonstration programs to assess impacts and feasibility of automation technologies for transit buses. Recently, a joint project between Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Volvo, and Land Transport Authority (LTA) launched a fully autonomous electric bus for on-road trials in Singapore (Figure 10-1). 10.3.6 Automated Driving Systems Integrating transit operations with traffic signals can improve energy efficiency, support schedule adherence, and may increase ridership by providing faster and more reliable service . Applications of this integration include traffic signal prioritization (TSP) for buses. The bus would either communicate with the intersection signals, alerting the intersection control that a Driving habits can have over a 25% impact on bus energy efficiency, based on CTEâs observations from bus data collected in revenue service. Automated driving features, such as automated braking and acceleration, can improve bus range by improving driver efficiency. Bus rapid transit (BRT) is a preferred application of vehicle automation, since dedicated traffic lanes are a more controlled operating environment, with less exposure to other road users. Figure 10-1. NTU-LTA-Volvo autonomous bus being tested at Center of Excellence for Testing and Research of Autonomous Vehicles.
140 Guidebook for Deploying Zero-Emission Transit Buses bus is present at or approaching the intersection, or dedicated bus lanes would have queue jumps with additional signals giving an earlier green signal and therefore priority. Additional onboard communications infrastructure is required for these applications, and implementing the functionality requires collaboration with owners of road and signal infrastructure (e.g., departments of transportation, public works departments). Deployments in Action The RTA is leading a regional coordination effort in collaboration with the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), and other transportation authorities throughout the region to deploy TSP to help the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and Pace buses travel along 100 miles of roadway and through about 500 intersections (Regional Transportation Authority, n.d.) (Figure 10-2). Figure 10-2. Overview of the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) Regional Transit Signal Priority Implementation Program (RTSPIP). (Image Source: RTSPIP)
Emerging Opportunities 141 Automated systems can improve yard operations or on-route charging logistics through automated, precision docking. Achieving acceptable alignment, which may be the difference of a few inches, can be challenging for bus operators. Automation would improve reliability through programmed behavior capable of repeatedly precise maneuvers. Automated docking for a depot-charged fleet would reduce infrastructure requirements. Fewer chargers and maintenance staff are needed if buses can maneuver around yards and dock themselves without human supervision, potentially at all hours. Cooperative adaptive cruise control, commonly referred to as âplatooning,â allows multiple vehicles to follow a lead vehicle with only a single human operator. This feature could eliminate the need for articulated buses by using the technology to maintain consistent spacing and alignment between buses. In addition to transit, the long-haul trucking industry is pursuing platooning technology. As the ZEB industry matures, new standards for bus and fueling infrastructure as well as mandates for ZEB purchases will likely emerge. An inductive charging standard is also under development (SAE J2954), and other standards may be written to support MW+ charging practices. In 2020, an APTA committee was in the process of developing BEB-specific procurement guidelines. Similar guidelines for FCEB procurement and charging infrastructure procurement may follow. California is the first U.S. state to require transit agencies to fully transition to ZEBs. It is possible that your transit agency may be subject to similar local, state, or federal regulationsin the future. ⢠ZEB Industry News and Updates o Industry News and Updates, Center for Transportation and the Environment o Industry Newsletter, Sustainable Bus o Zero-Emission Bus Resource Alliance (ZEBRA) ⢠Automated Drive Systems o Transit Automation Research Program, Federal Transit Administration o STAR Plan, Federal Transit Administration 10.3.7 New Standards and Mandates 10.4 Additional Resources
