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from the wheels-on-the-bus-go-round-and-round dept.
All 43 public buses in the Dutch cities of Eindhoven and Helmond will be electrically powered, starting the 11th of December. Together they form the largest zero-emission bus fleet in public transport in Europe.
It's the first public transport concession in Europe to deploy that many fully electric buses. London, for example, has 51 electric buses, but these are standard buses. The extra-long articulated buses in Dutch province Brabant can carry more passengers.
Transdev, first mover in zero emission public transport, commences operating the fleet on December 11th. One of the biggest problems the company had to solve was the limited operational radius of the buses. Transdev tackles this problem through a combination of ultra-fast charging technology and an innovative rotation system.
Buses that run out during the day, can be charged within half an hour. The bus terminus in Eindhoven has been converted from a single diesel garage into a charging garage, containing 43 charging points. The buses are equipped with a type of pantograph - known for trams and trolleybuses - which can make contact with the charging point. This construction was never used at this scale in The Netherlands.
Aren't buses always electric? [Eds Comment: Nope, probably a few tens of thousands of these around the UK. London Bus Image ]
(Score: 4, Touché) by inertnet on Friday December 09 2016, @11:49AM
There have been much larger electric fleets for many years, but those don't run on batteries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus [wikipedia.org].
It seems to me that these buses need to be charged multiple times a day, so only part of them will be operational at the same time.
(Score: 1) by fraxinus-tree on Friday December 09 2016, @04:44PM
Some modern trolleybuses even have traction batteries. It makes a lot easier to route them around obstacles or service some "wireless" streets.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Friday December 09 2016, @04:52PM
I'm not sure how the Dutch fleet operates, but a compromise is to locate chargers along the route at stops. These are designed to charge for minutes at a time so the route pacing is not interrupted. The fleet is utilized more than taking buses out of service for charging, and the batteries on the buses can be smaller and cheaper if you have power coming in regularly. The correct design is still a focus of research, with inductive charging receiving a lot of attention.
Here is an example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_electric_bus#/media/File:TOSA_Aeroport_rail_avec_t%C3%AAte.JPG [wikipedia.org]