The Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) partnered with the City of Lawrence (Lawrence) for a successful award under the Federal Transit Administration’s 2020 Low or No Emission Vehicle Program. Under this award, Lawrence has replaced five diesel buses from its fleet with five 40’ 444kWh GILLIG battery electric buses (BEBs) and installed ChargePoint charging infrastructure.
This is the first phase of the “Electrify Lawrence Transit” BEB deployment project. CTE worked directly with Lawrence Transit to manage the electric bus deployment project and provide technical support and expertise in route modeling and bus and charger equipment procurement processes. CTE also maintained close collaboration with project partners including the University of Kansas (KU), BG Consultants, Inc. (infrastructure design consultants), First Transit, GILLIG, and ChargePoint to ensure the project’s successful deployment.
Lawrence Transit received five GILLIG buses and corresponding charging equipment from ChargePoint throughout the spring and summer months of 2022. All five GILLIG BEBs entered revenue service at the start of KU’s Fall 2022 semester. CTE traveled to Lawrence after bus delivery and performed deployment validation, which involved collecting various data points from both the buses and chargers to measure operational performance and realized benefits resulting from the deployment of the zero-emission buses. CTE then provided monthly Key Performance Indicator reports on the five GILLIG BEBs for over a year before closing the project in June 2024. CTE will now continue working with Lawrence Transit through the City’s Phase 2 and 3 BEB deployment projects.
