Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has previously offered grants to businesses, communities and organizations to help fund purchases of new electric or ‘clean diesel’ vehicles. The most recent grant offered a total of $630,000 statewide for six electric school buses. An additional $5,000 was also available for the supporting electric vehicle charging station. The funding was divided between out state and the metro area. For the metro area, 60% of the grant funds were available, or $378,000, or 4 buses.
MPS Transportation Services studied the requirements of the MPCA grant as well as the potential costs and operational changes associated with incorporating electric school buses into its fleet. Despite not qualifying for this particular grant due to the model year requirement, there are other factors to consider in the conversation of including electric school buses in our fleet.
Until we are comfortable that electric buses will meet our needs, Transportation Services will continue to move our fleet to propane powered units which have proven to be dependable, economical and clean running. The switch from diesel fueled school buses to propane school buses began in 2014 with a state grant to offset the cost of propane fuel for the first year of implementation. Currently, there are 66 propane vehicles in the fleet.
In accordance with Minnesota State statute, Transportation Services has also developed idling restrictions for all vehicles to address unnecessary negative impacts to air quality and vehicle noise.
Transportation Services has developed a cycle of replacement methodology used to identify vehicles targeted for replacement. This methodology consists of key categories and a weighting system for each. Yearly, vehicles are evaluated for replacement using this methodology. Buses that score the lowest are budgeted for replacement. Using this system, Transportation Services is better able to predict replacements and plan more effectively. As buses are being replaced, they have been replaced with propane vehicles, which are less expensive to operate, maintain and repair and meets EPA Clean Air requirements.
Below is the rubric used to determine which buses to replace:
Category
Ranking
Access value
Age
Maximum weight: 40
Less than 10 years
40
11
30
12
20
13
10
14 and over
0
Repair trend over last 2 years
Maximum weight: 20
Under $5k
$5k - $10k
Over $10k
Mileage
Under 100k
101k – 150k
Over 150k
Interior condition
Maximum weight: 10
Good
Poor
Exterior condition
Minneapolis Public Schools has 176 buses in its fleet with an average vehicle age of 5 years. Below is a brief breakdown of our current fleet.
Size
Fuel Type
Quantity
Total Quantity
Average age
Average mileage
Full-size bus, type “C”
Diesel
45
74
2012
91,928
Propane
29
2019
19,110
Seat belt ready, type “C”
9
105,841
4
2020
7,558
Wheelchair bus
17
56
93,888
33
21,572
Unleaded
6
2018
29,431
Small bus, type “A”
21
2015
66,287
Type III vehicles
2016
54,601
Full-sized buses have 71-seat capacity (elementary students) Standard, large school bus.
Seat belt ready buses have reinforced seats so infant car seats can be installed. They have 65-seat capacity and look like standard, large school buses. In 2018, MPS began to specify seat belt ready buses when ordering replacement vehicles. These buses are constructed with reinforced floors to accommodate seat belts.
Wheelchair buses range from 10-seat to 50-seat capacity, with 2, 3 or 6 wheelchair capacities. Size ranges from small to large buses.
Small buses look like buses typically associated with special needs transportation but do not have wheelchair capacity.
Type III vehicles are white vans with 6-seat or 8-seat capacity. Four vans have 1 wheelchair capacity.
[1] NOx is a generic term for the nitrogen oxides that are most relevant for air pollution, namely nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2)