The Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) contracted with the City of Burlington, North Carolina to develop an independent operational analysis to help the City match zero-emission technologies to their existing routes.
In September 2023, Link Transit piloted its first battery electric bus (BEB) on the route. CTE collected operational data and performed validation testing, as well as bus and route modeling, where CTE gathered data on routes, technical specifications on vehicles and charging equipment, and operational assumptions matching Link’s specific routes and blocking.
CTE provided estimates of bus efficiency, range, and daily energy consumption under both normal and strenuous operating conditions. These estimates also considered the new and warrantable end-of-life state of health of the energy storage systems.
In addition, CTE defined charging scenarios to model electricity consumption and assess the requirements for charging equipment and made recommendations for charging windows based on the best available energy pricing.
As Link expanded and trained its workforce to support BEBs, CTE reviewed Transdev (Link’s contracted training partner) training plans and compared them to existing standards, making recommendations for additional training.
As Link continues to use BEBs, CTE will provide key performance indicator (KPI) dashboards based on ongoing operational data from Link. These dashboards contain metrics defined by Link and monitor bus and charger performance. CTE will continue to meet periodically with Link to review KPIs and advise on necessary operational changes to best utilize BEBs.
