You’ve heard about renewable diesel and renewable natural gas. What about renewable propane? The majority of traditional propane in the U.S. comes from natural gas. Renewable propane is a byproduct of renewable diesel, and because it’s coming from renewable feedstock, its carbon emissions are extremely low — even potentially negative. The fuel is chemically identical to regular propane, meaning it can be used on any propane vehicle.
With the help of state funding, the fleet of Colonial Airport Parking Inc. – located two miles from Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) – will be powered entirely with propane autogas by this March. The airport parking and shuttle provider was recently awarded a $66,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to cover propane autogas conversions for four shuttle buses, which will bring the company’s fleet to 100% propane autogas. Each of Colonial’s shuttles accommodates up to 14 passengers and their luggage.
Flint MTA transports nearly 470,000 passengers through its paratransit service. Seniors, persons with disabilities, and the public rely on MTA’s “Your Ride” curb-to-curb shuttle bus service within the City of Flint and Genesee County. And, Community Transit buses travel fixed routes throughout the area. As buses in its fleet age, MTA continues to replace them with alternatively fueled vehicles.
Do you have a question about propane school buses or propane in general? Ryan Zic can help! He developed a list of FAQs on everything from propane fueling to saving money with propane buses to cold-weather operation. Zic’s expert advice can be found online at School Bus Fleet.
In an effort to reduce its environmental footprint, the Park City School District recently purchased two propane school buses. The buses, which arrived in Park City last week, are in service, transporting students to and from Trailside Elementary School, Ecker Hill Middle School, Treasure Mountain Junior High and Park City High School. They replaced two diesel buses in the district’s fleet.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has awarded Colonial Airport Parking an Alternative Fuels Incentive Grant (AFIG) for $66,000 that will cover 100% of the LPG (Liquid Propane Gas) conversions for four shuttle buses. With the addition of the new shuttle buses, Colonial’s fleet will be 100% propane powered by March 2019.
More states have closed funding opportunities. Currently, 37 states have published funding opportunities representing $361.2 million — with $102.8 million of that exclusively allocated for school bus replacement. Make sure you are aware of your state’s status.
As of December 2018:
Thirty seven states have final plans:
Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana ,North Carolina, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Nine states have draft plans:
Alaska, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota and Vermont.
Six states are still developing their plans and are accepting comments:
Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and West Virginia.
Please contact Chelsea Jenkins at Chelsea.Jenkins@roush.com to discuss how best to approach and plan for the next phase of VW Settlement (and other funding) opportunities in your state.
Visit www.roushcleantech.com/volkswagen-settlement for more information.
Our engines are set for the new year! We recently received Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board certifications for our 2019 model year propane engines.
The EPA and CARB certifications are applicable in all 50 states and cover our propane-powered 6.8L V10 engine used in the Vision school bus. Although we are still building 2018 model year engines, this certification helps ensure a smooth transition from MY18 to MY19 propane engines.
These are no different from this year’s certifications. The MY19 engine has been certified to 0.05 g/bhp-hr NOx (low NOx), which comes standard on the Vision. And, it has also been certified to 0.02 g/bhp-hr NOx (ultra-low NOx), which is available as an orderable option for an additional fee.
Both certifications meet CARB’s optional low-NOx emissions standards!
You can find copies of the certifications online here.
Dealer: North Central Bus Sales
Last month, we hosted what we’ve been calling ‘Region Rally’s’ with Minnesota’s North Central Bus Sales to focus on alternative-fuel school bus sales. The goal of each Region Rally is to get the entire sales teams together from the dealer, ROUSH CleanTech and Blue Bird to work together on a few days of training and sales calls.
The rally began at North Centrals’ St. Cloud facility with a daylong training course discussing the different school bus fuel options. For the next two days, we divided into teams — with one person from each company— to make sales calls.
The teams drove propane demo buses to visit almost 20 customer locations. Customers had the opportunity to take test drives and ask questions about the propane school bus.
It was a very successful event with potential new propane customers in the works.
Thank you to the North Central Bus Sales team for participating in the rally!
If you are interested in an event like this, please contact Ryan Zic at Ryan.Zic@roush.com
As many of you have now heard, ROUSH CleanTech is conducting a pilot telematics program to monitor real-time diagnostics. We are deploying devices on a total of 500 propane buses and 100 gasoline buses. All of the gasoline units have been assigned to customers, but we still need approximately 250 more propane buses to participate.
Have a customer in mind? The two requirements are that the customer’s bus must be equipped with a 2018 model year or newer Ford 6.8L engine, and also must not use another telematics technology (Synovia, Zonar, etc).
All your customer needs to do to participate is to sign our simple data privacy agreement and have our free, small cellular device installed into their bus’s OBD-II port.
Once the device is installed, we will be able to:
We will then monitor and ask the following questions:
By gathering this information, we are hoping to demonstrate a measurable reduction in your customers’ vehicle down-time. Assuming our pilot is successful, we will look at further capabilities of this technology in helping to predict failures before they occur.
If you have a customer who you think would be interested in participating, please contact your ROUSH CleanTech sales representative.
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