MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

[bigeman312]

Increasing the fleet or replacing existing buses?

 

[datadyne007]

Increasing the fleet or replacing existing buses?

The press release says the existing fleet "needs to be replaced," but since when do we replace ANYTHING on the T when its "useful life" ends? They're still running RTS buses for Christ's sake. I'd hope they just supplement service with these new buses.

The T included this in the tweet they sent out btw:

 

[winstonoboogie]

Increasing the fleet or replacing existing buses?

Replacing the 1001-1044 Neoplan buses from 2003. CNG tanks at that time were only certified for 15 years of use, so the tanks would have to be replaced on those buses for them to run beyond 2017. Although technically it is a one for one replacement (44 buses to replace 44) in practice it will be a slight increase in the active fleet, since some of the Neoplans are already out of service.

 

[winstonoboogie]

The press release says the existing fleet "needs to be replaced," but since when do we replace ANYTHING on the T when its "useful life" ends? They're still running RTS buses for Christ's sake. I'd hope they just supplement service with these new buses.

This is New Flyer's second order from the MBTA this year, earlier they got the big contract for 325 40-foot buses (175 CNG and 150 hybrid).

The CNG tank issue dictates that the 2003/2004 NABI 40-foot buses and the 44 Neoplan 60-foot artic buses have to go. The cost to replace tanks is $$ thousand per bus, and the NABIs have corrosion issues as well.

The RTS buses have stainless-steel frames and for 20 year old buses, have held up. There is a cost to keeping older buses running, but not as much as the cost to replace CNG tanks. It looks like at least a small number of RTS buses will still be in the active fleet after the much newer NABI and Neoplan artics are gone. If they pick-up the option to buy more 40-foot buses from New Flyer, they can finish off the RTS fleet with those.

 

[CantabAmager]

Something I've always wondered: why keep the SL livery?

The attached photo jogged my mind, I'm assuming the new order will be mix of silver-ized 60 footers and standard livery equivalents. But why keep the livery at all? I get it ties into the subway plan, get that it sought to be a cheap way of emphasizing the "equal or better" criteria, get that it represents an increased fare, get that it's a "branding" exercise (but the BRT resurgence kinda petered out, so it just seems like a misplaced appendage to the map), but I personally still don't vibe with it and I don't think those reasons are important enough just keep things the way they are, because they are that way. And the outside-SS connection to SL Dudley confuses people, I've had to direct strangers at SS to the stop.

Surely there's a more effective way of indicating major bus routes on MBTA maps, indicating routes that have subway fares. Yet I don't think the the charlie card/tap and go riders are going to notice, and bus-dependent population in Roxbury (the ones who would be most affected by and attuned to price increases) already know how the pricing structure.

I'm absolutely behind the idea of the MBTA better emphasizing it's important routes - I've mentioned that before - but surely there's a better way to do so (even it's just a colored flap that a driver flips up or down depending on that day's route or if it's an "A", "K", "E" displayed by the number on the e-rollsign). They've done decent work incorporating the key busses on to the map, but there's still a long way and significant improvement to be had.

 

[Coyote137]

Something I've always wondered: why keep the SL livery?

The attached photo jogged my mind, I'm assuming the new order will be mix of silver-ized 60 footers and standard livery equivalents. But why keep the livery at all? I get it ties into the subway plan, get that it sought to be a cheap way of emphasizing the "equal or better" criteria, get that it represents an increased fare, get that it's a "branding" exercise (but the BRT resurgence kinda petered out, so it just seems like a misplaced appendage to the map), but I personally still don't vibe with it and I don't think those reasons are important enough just keep things the way they are, because they are that way. And the outside-SS connection to SL Dudley confuses people, I've had to direct strangers at SS to the stop.

Surely there's a more effective way of indicating major bus routes on MBTA maps, indicating routes that have subway fares. Yet I don't think the the charlie card/tap and go riders are going to notice, and bus-dependent population in Roxbury (the ones who would be most affected by and attuned to price increases) already know how the pricing structure.

I'm absolutely behind the idea of the MBTA better emphasizing it's important routes - I've mentioned that before - but surely there's a better way to do so (even it's just a colored flap that a driver flips up or down depending on that day's route or if it's an "A", "K", "E" displayed by the number on the e-rollsign). They've done decent work incorporating the key busses on to the map, but there's still a long way and significant improvement to be had.

I'd keep it if only for the hope that having it as part of the "rapid transit" system is a good means of badgering for better service in the future.

 

[Arlington]

This is New Flyer's second order from the MBTA this year, earlier they got the big contract for 325 40-foot buses (175 CNG and 150 hybrid).

The CNG tank issue dictates that the 2003/2004 NABI 40-foot buses and the 44 Neoplan 60-foot artic buses have to go. The cost to replace tanks is $$ thousand per bus, and the NABIs have corrosion issues as well.

The RTS buses have stainless-steel frames and for 20 year old buses, have held up. There is a cost to keeping older buses running, but not as much as the cost to replace CNG tanks. It looks like at least a small number of RTS buses will still be in the active fleet after the much newer NABI and Neoplan artics are gone. If they pick-up the option to buy more 40-foot buses from New Flyer, they can finish off the RTS fleet with those.

CNG also have the problem that they aren't legal in tunnels, right?

Which fleet have the Skoda-electric-artic+diesel (is that one you listed or a whole other fleet?)

Now that buses are going diesel-electric hybrid (like these), how hard is it to fit trolley poles to the top and run them as electric trolley buses?

At some point, won't it make sense to unify the following fleets:
- Harvard Sq Trolleybus
- Tunnel-Seaport Articulated Diesel-Trolley
- Washington St Articulated (former CNG, soon Diesel)

 

[winstonoboogie]

CNG also have the problem that they aren't legal in tunnels, right?

Which fleet have the Skoda-electric-artic+diesel (is that one you listed or a whole other fleet?)

Now that buses are going diesel-electric hybrid (like these), how hard is it to fit trolley poles to the top and run them as electric trolley buses?

At some point, won't it make sense to unify the following fleets:
- Harvard Sq Trolleybus
- Tunnel-Seaport Articulated Diesel-Trolley
- Washington St Articulated (former CNG, soon Diesel)

CNG can run in roadway tunnels (Massport uses their CNG buses on the their Back Bay shuttle route through the Ted Williams). They can't or at least shouldn't be used any place gas can pool with poor ventilation especially if near an ignition source like a spark from a 600V DC trackless trolley wire. So they can't be used in the Harvard bus tunnel or the South Boston Transitway.

The Neoplan/Skoda dual-modes aren't being replaced yet, they are being overhauled. The first overhauled one should be returning from the rebuilder this week. The order they just placed for the 44 hybrid artics does have an option for a 45th bus which would be equipped with an option to run under 100% battery power for an extended range. If successful, there is an option for an additional 44 hybrid buses to purchase to replace the dual-modes (which will have been in service for a few years post-overhaul by the time the option is delivered). Under that scenario, they would remove the wires from the South Boston Transitway, run the buses in diesel-electric mode on the surface, and run in battery mode in the tunnel.

Separate from this just announced order, the MBTA earlier in 2015, received federal grant money to buy 5 experimental 100% battery powered articulated buses from New Flyer. My understanding is these buses are a few years off, as the grant money is also for New Flyer to spend on engineering costs first required to build the buses. These buses will feature two powered axles (the middle and the rear). This may make it more practical to run articulated buses on grades in snow and ice, right now the rear-axle powered CNG and hybrid artics get pulled and replaced by 40-footers when it gets slippery. The dual-modes buses don't have this problem, as both the middle and rear axles are powered on them, but they are an unique design.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

The press release says the existing fleet "needs to be replaced," but since when do we replace ANYTHING on the T when its "useful life" ends? They're still running RTS buses for Christ's sake. I'd hope they just supplement service with these new buses.

The RTS's are still scheduled for replacement. They've just been reshuffled to the option part of the orders and not the primary. Since the options are a spot-on guarantee to be picked up, the end result is all the same. Not necessarily even at a different time, either. This summer they did a big scrap bid and cleared the yards of 47 stored RTS's. Remaining fleet is 63 active units, 32 stored. So figure they're going to drain the stored ranks again with another scrap bid when the new acceptances pile up, simply to clear yard space. That'll be enough to shift most of the active RTS's on standby (e.g. on-call for rapid transit bustitution duty, surge service, etc.) and limit the weekly hours of service on the ones still on regular route duty enough that they'll accumulate very little new wear waiting out the option deliveries.

It's little more than a paperwork re-shuffle where the garages inventoried which pending classes of retirees are in worst to least-worst shape, and adjusted the sequence of retirements to match current conditions.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

CNG also have the problem that they aren't legal in tunnels, right?

Which fleet have the Skoda-electric-artic+diesel (is that one you listed or a whole other fleet?)

Now that buses are going diesel-electric hybrid (like these), how hard is it to fit trolley poles to the top and run them as electric trolley buses?

At some point, won't it make sense to unify the following fleets:
- Harvard Sq Trolleybus
- Tunnel-Seaport Articulated Diesel-Trolley
- Washington St Articulated (former CNG, soon Diesel)

TT's have much longer lifespan than regular buses, so procurement cycles for Cambridge are much more widely-spaced than elsewhere. They get about 30 years per cycle, dating from the 1976 Flyer fleet all the way back to the first Pullman TT's of 1936. We can't even speculate what the Harvard routes are going to look like in 2030 when the next order gets placed, or what the state of battery buses is going to be that many generations of improvements in the future.

I suppose if the SL dual-modes' carbodies are in good shape after their post-rebuild extended lifespan runs its course they can evaluate the utility of doing a rebuild-after-next that strips out the combustion engine to let them live out end-of-life as supplemental 60-footer TT's for Cambridge. They don't have left-handed doors, however, so the assessment would have to be that another extended life prices out so cheap that it's worth the more cumbersome boarding procedure to scatter in some supplemental 60-footers at pennies on the dollar.


Induction charging has become viable vehicle tech now, so if raising and lowering of poles in the Transitway are too cumbersome the power source can be repurposed for induction charging plates buried in the pavement. The act of driving over the metal plate wirelessly recharges the battery. They could, for example, install the charging plates in the non-revenue areas like South Station loop so that the buses get a battery boost when looping for next run or a complete recharge when laying over. And that's possibly something you could install at terminal stations like Mystic Mall too to give SL Gateway a boost when it's rounding the loop for the return trip, ensuring that there'll be ample charge upon entering D St. portal. As long as it's something they can hook up to the same 600v trunk feed at the Transitway it's a potentially more promising means of ensuring that battery is always charged for duration of both the inbound and the outbound tunnel trips than retaining that time-waster pole change at SL Way.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

AFAIK, induction charging wastes roughly 10% of the energy in a way that conductive charging just doesn't, and that's why Elon Musk gets so exasperated when anyone brings up inductive charging.

The Proterra buses in Worcester already do conductive charging with an overhead charging station that automatically connects the power to the bus when the bus drives under the charging station, and trying to run too many buses on one charging station might be the real reason they're avoiding the hills (and the federal government found money to buy a second charging station that may not yet have been built and installed). http://www.proterra.com/the-proterr...iciency-gradeability-weight-and-acceleration/ notes that some Proterra buses can climb 15.5% grades, although that is probably a slightly different model than what Worcester has.

But then it also seems that some of the newer Proterra buses may be intended to have large enough batteries to not need charging during the peak commute. (Mid-day charging during transit's off-peak will likely still be a good idea, especially if solar becomes sufficiently widespread.)

I'm not sure there's any good reason to try to tie battery buses to the T's 600 VDC infrastructure. If there's a widespread subway power failure that forces bustitution, designing the system so that the buses will also potentially go unpowered does not seem like a win. And if you were one of those folks who wanted the T buying standard North American buses instead of weird T specific buses, I'd be wondering if you'd be advocating for just using whatever off the shelf solution the bus manufacturer is offering, even if it's based off the 480VAC or 208VAC standards.

Tesla's prototype robotic charging snake:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMM0lRfX6YI

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

high floor bus retirement

The RTS's are still scheduled for replacement. They've just been reshuffled to the option part of the orders and not the primary. Since the options are a spot-on guarantee to be picked up, the end result is all the same. Not necessarily even at a different time, either. This summer they did a big scrap bid and cleared the yards of 47 stored RTS's. Remaining fleet is 63 active units, 32 stored. So figure they're going to drain the stored ranks again with another scrap bid when the new acceptances pile up, simply to clear yard space. That'll be enough to shift most of the active RTS's on standby (e.g. on-call for rapid transit bustitution duty, surge service, etc.) and limit the weekly hours of service on the ones still on regular route duty enough that they'll accumulate very little new wear waiting out the option deliveries.

It's little more than a paperwork re-shuffle where the garages inventoried which pending classes of retirees are in worst to least-worst shape, and adjusted the sequence of retirements to match current conditions.

Aren't those RTS buses the high floor buses?

http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/A...tReport1BaselineAnalysisandProgresstoDate.pdf seems to contradict what you're saying; on the 38th page of the 50 page PDF, which has page number 34 printed in the image of the page, it claims ``Progress has been made in improving accessibility. For example, all active buses are now “low-floor,” making them much easier for people of all abilities to use.''

(And I'm pretty sure that since that report was released I've ridden in a high floor bus which had a non-functioning stop request system, possibly 0377, which is another BCIL settlement violation.)

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Re: high floor bus retirement

Aren't those RTS buses the high floor buses?

http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/A...tReport1BaselineAnalysisandProgresstoDate.pdf seems to contradict what you're saying; on the 38th page of the 50 page PDF, which has page number 34 printed in the image of the page, it claims ``Progress has been made in improving accessibility. For example, all active buses are now “low-floor,” making them much easier for people of all abilities to use.''

(And I'm pretty sure that since that report was released I've ridden in a high floor bus which had a non-functioning stop request system, possibly 0377, which is another BCIL settlement violation.)

Yes, but all of the ones that remain are wheelchair + ASA retrofits. There are none left in any corner of the systemwide fleet that don't conform to ADA regs. Glitched-out stop request doesn't mean there's a violation; it means something broke. Report it, and they'll fix it. Otherwise they're not going to know it's broken until next scheduled inspection.

The retirement sequence was reshuffled with the June awarding of the hybrid and CNG 40-footer contract. During the bid process they were still planning for RTS's to be the first retirees. So that is a very recent change.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

``No bell'' written inside the bus doesn't support your assertion that they don't know about it.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

``No bell'' written inside the bus doesn't support your assertion that they don't know about it.

And if the bus is in-service when they hear about it, there's nothing they can do about it except put in a sign until they can get to a garage.


What does an in-service break have to do with fleet configurations? Nothing. Call customer service if it bothers you that much to see on an in-service vehicle.

 

[tangent]

Interesting article on autonomous buses that talks about applications for BRT: http://www.wired.com/2015/10/chinas-self-driving-bus-shows-autonomous-techs-real-potential/

Obviously these are still prototypes, but expecting that these might be available off-the-shelf 5 to 10 years out might be a reasonable assumption.

 

[davem]

Anyone know what's up with the 60XX buses? I just overheard a bunch of driver complaining about one bring brought down, and not wanting to drive it.

 

[sm89]

Anyone know what's up with the 60XX buses? I just overheard a bunch of driver complaining about one bring brought down, and not wanting to drive it.

I prefer riding on any New Flyer over the NABIs and Neoplans, but I think they 60xxs are starting to be sidelined due to their CNG tanks expiring. Other than that, I really don't see why a driver would prefer a NABI CNG over a New Flyer CNG.

 

[Arlington]

I prefer riding on any New Flyer over the NABIs and Neoplans, but I think they 60xxs are starting to be sidelined due to their CNG tanks expiring. Other than that, I really don't see why a driver would prefer a NABI CNG over a New Flyer CNG.

It is a true pleasure to hang out with bus aficionados, but I'll admit I still need to decode what you say using Wikipedia's MBTA Bus article

 

[Arlington]

Houston took the tough-but-smart step of consolidating many low-frequency bus routes into fewer, more frequent routes--more like our Key Bus Routes system (which is a retro-nym for routes that just happened to work)

Houston's uptick happened at a time when new light rail was opening (and had diverted some riders). Ridership fell initially as weekday riders were confused (though weekend ridership went up as people experimented)

By November 2015, traffic was up 11% year over year (at a time when gas prices were falling)

Great articles here:
Vox (Jan '16)
StreetsBlog (Oct '15) and (Jan '15)

Every old bus system needs this, particularly ones that just retrace old streetcar routes and hubs., as Boston does.

The better model, as Houston shows, is "transit worth walking to" aka "more steps to a shorter wait" ....as opposed to "few steps to a long wait" (our current model)