The Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) partnered with The City of Columbia, Missouri (COMO) for a successful award under the Federal Transit Administration’s 2022 Low or No Emission Vehicle Program (Low-No). For this project, CTE will assist COMO with the deployment of six battery electric buses (BEBs)—three of the buses will be funded through the Low-No 2022 grant whereas other funding will be used to procure the additional three buses. CTE previously worked with COMO to deploy four Build Your Dreams BEBs in 2020.
CTE is acting as project manager for the overall project. As part of the project planning, CTE prepared a workbook detailing the project goals and objectives as well as the approach to deliverable execution and key milestones.
Modeling is an important element of the initial project stages. CTE performed bus and route analysis and charge and utility rate modeling to determine the requirements for the buses to complete COMO service. CTE also provided guidance, oversight, and inspection coordination during the bus build process. The buses were delivered to COMO in Q2 2024. After delivery, CTE traveled to Columbia to conduct validation testing. CTE will provide the results of the validation testing to COMO in Q3 2024.
The buses entered into revenue service at the end of Q2 2024. CTE is now collecting, analyzing, and reporting key performance indicators (KPIs) for a one-year period. The purpose of KPI reporting is to understand the overall performance of the BEBs and to determine project benefits such as emissions impacts, fuel consumption reduction, cost savings, and maintenance impacts. CTE will also continue to update the current KPI dashboard for COMO’s existing fleet of four BEBs. After the data collection period is complete, CTE will issue a final report summarizing project results, findings, and lessons learned.
