With months to spare before the start of the upcoming school year, New York City has inked a brand new contract for its fleet of school buses. The contract is slated to feature an electric bus pilot project, which will help the city work towards new green measures.
The five new electric buses are being introduced to the fleet by Logan Bus and will be charged by and operated in collaboration with Amply Power. The project includes Rhombus Energy Solutions’ V2G bidirectional EV charging system.
Corey Muirhead, Executive VP of Logan Bus, said, “Making the city’s school bus fleet greener will play an integral part in the fight against climate change, and will be a welcome addition for children and parents of the NYC schools.”
The contract runs for five years and involves multiple labor unions, a handful of municipal agencies, 41 companies, and a $1.5 billion annual budget. It will also extend through the city’s next mayoral administration.
NYC’s current fleet contains some 10,000 school buses. It completes approximately 3.6 million trips each year and serves over 200,000 students. With this new contract, companies have agreed to green measures like using newer buses with air conditioning and implementing better practices that will help streamline bus routes.
The city isn’t the first to incorporate electric school buses—a fleet in Maryland is going all-electric. There are also small movements working to bring electric buses to the general public across North America.
