Valley Regional Transit (VRT), a public transit agency serving the metropolitan area of Boise, Idaho, partnered with the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE) and Jacobs on a successful award under the Federal Transit Administration’s 2022 Low or No Emission Vehicle Program (Low-No). VRT will deploy eight 35’ GILLIG battery electric buses (BEBs), four Heliox depot chargers, and eight Heliox overhead chargers.
This deployment is the next phase of VRT’s effort to expand its electric bus fleet in order to reduce emissions and improve rider experience. The deployment will occur alongside the redevelopment of State Street, a major transit corridor in Boise, which is funded by a Department of Transportation Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity grant. The eight BEBs purchased under this project will join 12 others that are already operated by VRT.
The project was kicked off in early May 2023. Since its kickoff, CTE has completed four major project deliverables. Shortly after the project’s launch, CTE created and submitted a Project Workbook, which comprehensively documents the project’s key background information, objectives, resources, partners, risks, milestones, and implementation plans. In June and July 2023, CTE delivered three modeling analyses which project the energy efficiencies of future BEBs servicing VRT routes under various operating conditions, anticipate the feasibility of future BEBs completing VRT’s blocks under various charging and bus specification scenarios, and estimate the charging costs associated with these scenarios. Since the delivery of these analyses, CTE has continued to provide additional modeling services and insights to VRT in response to specific ad hoc requests.
Ahead of the project’s BEB production in early to mid 2025, CTE will provide bus specification review and advisory services. Once the project’s BEBs and chargers have been deployed, CTE will perform validation testing in order to verify that the real-world performance of the delivered assets matches their expected performance. Once the project’s buses and chargers are in service, CTE will collect, analyze, and provide reporting to VRT on key performance indicators for 12 months.
