The Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) partnered with The City of Davenport (CitiBus) for a successful award under the Federal Transit Administration’s 2022 Low or No Emission Vehicle Program (Low- No). CTE is working with CitiBus to deploy four GILLIG battery electric buses to replace aging diesel buses well beyond their useful life in terms of years and mileage. CTE is using its Zero-Emission Smart Deployment Methodology to guide this project, which includes nine primary phases. CTE attended an in-person project kickoff with CitiBus in June 2023 to review the project management plan and schedule. In addition, a data collection and route modeling workshop was held to determine which of CitiBus’ existing routes CTE should collect data from to complete the Requirements Analysis task. Finally, CTE collected data from each of CitiBus’ routes to be used to model how battery electric buses would perform on those routes. Using the data and information provided by CitiBus, CTE completed route modeling, route feasibility, and rate modeling.
As part of the Bus Procurement and Build phase, CTE coordinated a kickoff with GILLIG to develop bus specifications and pricing. CTE also supported CitiBus with developing a charging specification and other documentation required for procurement. CTE supported Citibus in the development of a scope of work for design services for the charging installation and Citibus is currently completing the solicitation. CTE will continue to support Citibus during the design and installation of the charging infrastructure and will conduct on-site validation testing of the buses and chargers to confirm they meet the requirements of the technical specifications. Once the four buses enter revenue service, CTE will collect, analyze, and report on key performance indicators to help track and understand the performance of the electric buses for a period of 12 months. After this data collection period concludes, CTE will issue a final report summarizing project results, findings, and lessons learned.
