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SARTA Unveils Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus in Columbus
The Stark Area Regional Transit Authority (SARTA), Canton, OH, unveiled its first hydrogen fuel cell bus during an April 19 event at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, held in conjunction with the Ohio Public Transportation Association’s (OPTA) Annual Conference.
Through an agreement between SARTA and Ohio State University (OSU), the university will operate the new bus for the next 12 months as part of the Campus Area Bus Service. OSU’s Center for Automotive Research will collect vehicle performance data.
The agency received funding for this bus and one other from FTA’s National Fuel Cell Bus Program in partnership with CALSTART of Pasadena, CA, which requires a 50 percent in-kind contribution. The partners for building the bus, El Dorado, Ballard Power Systems and BAE, also contributed to the match.
The second bus has been delivered to the Altoona Bus Testing and Research Center in Altoona, PA, operated by Penn State’s Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute, where it will undergo rigorous testing for several months.
“Under normal circumstances, we would have had to come up with a 20 percent local match to purchase the buses,” said SARTA Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer Kirt Conrad. “The Federal Transit Administration match is not required because we’re allowing Ohio State and Penn State to test them. That saved us more than $1.6 million.”
SARTA is preparing to operate 10 fuel cell buses, which will enter service in 2017 and 2018. The other eight buses were funded under FTA’s Low and No Emission Vehicle Deployment Program, five under a former grant and three announced in April. Once all 10 vehicles are in operation, SARTA will become the third largest operator of fuel cell buses in the U.S. and the largest outside California.
Speakers at the OPTA conference included APTA Chair Valarie J. McCall, board member, Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority.
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| SARTA Executive Director/CEO Kirt Conrad demonstrated the safety of hydrogen fuel cell buses by drinking the only product from the tailpipe: clean water. “We couldn’t think of a clearer way to illustrate exactly what ‘zero emissions’ means,” he said. |
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