Our school buses are an integral part of our society. Each day they are responsible for transporting thousands of students around the country. Because school buses are on the road for long periods, they are also big polluters. Since we need school buses as a means of transportation, there is a push to help clean up their journey by replacing diesel school buses with electric alternatives.
Here is some important information that you should know about the switch:
Why is There a Push to Clean Up the School Bus Journey?
Believe it or not, around 480,000 school buses carry tens of millions of kids to school across the country every day. Now, fewer than 1% of buses on the road in the U.S. are electric. If school buses continue to switch over to a more environmentally friendly option, they can drastically reduce harmful CO2 emissions in the air.
A 2018 report by PIRG Education Fund shared that encouraging U.S. school buses to switch from diesel to electric can cut emissions by nearly 5.3 million tons, equivalent to taking close to a million cars off the road.
The Goal is to Cut Emissions and Costs
By switching to electric buses, schools can now focus on saving or using the extra money they saved towards improving schools. Since electricity is cheaper and easier to maintain than other fuels, schools can find themselves saving thousands of dollars per year.
Why Might Someone be Cautious About Purchasing an Electric Bus?
Since electric buses have proven themselves to come with many benefits, it seems like an easy decision to make the switch. However, you may want to keep in mind that electric buses are much more expensive than diesel buses. If a school board is considering switching over to an electric bus fleet, they should be prepared for the cost difference. Sometimes this switch can cost a district thousands of dollars.
The costly switch is particularly a problem for lower- and middle-income communities, where pollution levels are likely to be worse. Studies have also shown that disadvantaged areas with higher air pollution levels have also been linked to lower academic performance. So, although switching to electric buses may not financially work for you now, it’s something to highly consider in the future to help improve academic performance and air quality.
Are Electric Buses Linked to Better Grades in School Districts?
Although gas and diesel emissions won’t cause physical harm to a student, some studies have shown that these emissions can impact students’ brains. Believe it or not, improving your air quality in a district can improve test performance in students. One study showed that students who weren’t exposed to traditional school bus emissions scored nearly 5% higher on tests.
How Can You Refuel an Electric Bus?
Although purchasing an electric bus can be costly upfront, you will save on other costs that come with a gas or diesel bus over time. One of the major drawbacks to propane and other physical alt-fuels is that your school district needs a source for those fuels. However, electric buses make it easy for buses to refuel! All an electric bus needs to recharge is to be plugged directly into a local power grid.
You may even find some districts setting up solar panels to help generate free power for their buses.
Making the Switch to Cleaner Transportation
Currently, Mike Cooper, the Director of Global Innovation at National Grid Partners, is working with the Clean Transportation team at National Grid to help schools play their part in decarbonization. Even adding just 25 electric buses into service could result in large benefits like reducing as much pollution as taking 1,600 cars off the road and potentially cutting running costs by a total of $37.5 million.
This project is still in the approval process and is expected to be approved in July of 2021.
To learn more about this project, check out National Grid’s article! In the meantime, if your fleet is looking for a new, affordable bus to add, be sure to check out our selection of new and used school buses for sale!
If you have any questions, contact American Bus Sales today.
