Electricity is now driving Saint John Transit to green transportation.
On Tuesday, the city unveiled the first 40-foot electric vehicle in its transit fleet.
Manufactured in Canada, the fully electric bus was put into regular service and will replace one of the diesel buses.
“It has a little larger seating capacity as it goes from 36 to 41. Within the year, the city will probably save over $20,000 in fuel and eliminate nearly 50 tons in carbon dioxide emissions,” said Ian Fogan, director of Saint John Transit.
The bus can also travel almost 300 kilometres on a single charge and the battery takes just five hours to fully charge. It also has a low floor to make it accessible.
Currently, the city is leasing the bus for six months from BYD, the world’s leading battery-electric bus manufacturer with more than 50,000 vehicles on the road worldwide.
“It’s a six-month demo, so we can figure out what kind of bus we need, how it works in our climate, so we’re paying for this demo, which is $4,500 per month,” said Fogan.
Nick Cameron, chair of the Saint John Transit Commission, was also part of Tuesday’s announcement.
Cameron mentioned the electric bus is part of the city’s Transforming Transit initiative.
“What’s great about the Transforming Transit initiative is that we’re not being presented with a tough choice between improving service and greening the fleet because both are important, so with this initiative we have a plan that accomplishes both.”
“I think when you ask riders ‘is greening the fleet important to them?’ they say ‘yes’ but at the end of the day they need a service that works for them, so I’m really happy to see we’re accomplishing both in our plan,” continued Cameron.
The City of Saint John has a goal of running all transit buses on electricity by 2040.
Introducing @ThinkTransitSJ’s new 100% battery electric 40 foot bus. pic.twitter.com/K65AAXjX0e
— Tim Herd (@timherdradio) July 19, 2022
