Advanced Buses

NREL has wide-ranging experience in developing and demonstrating bus technology to help fleets achieve energy and fuel savings.

Photo of a fully electric blue Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority bus.

Alternative Fuel Bus Evaluations

Transportation agencies nationwide are integrating efficient buses into their fleets to take advantage of reduced energy costs and cleaner emissions. To support cost-effective, optimized transitions to these advanced vehicles, NREL provides customized evaluations of electric bus development, performance, cost, and infrastructure requirements. This includes battery-electric buses (BEBs), hybrid electric buses, and fuel cell electric buses (FCEBs).

An electric school bus next to a charging station

Our evaluations include:

Creating inventories of agencies’ current fleets
Collecting detailed operational data of conventional and alternate fuel vehicles
Evaluating their performance
Assessing their total costs of ownership
Identifying strategies to improve the cost and performance of low- and zero-emissions fleets.

In-use data collection for electric buses can include average bus speed, energy usage per trip, HVAC system use, emissions estimates, operating costs, maintenance, and bus driver user experience. We can also analyze battery degradation.

Bus Demonstrations

NREL has experience demonstrating and comparing different bus technologies under real-world conditions. Our portfolio includes demonstrations of BEBs versus propane-fueled buses for the National Park Service, FCEBs for the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District, and BEBs for numerous transit agencies, governments, and communities.

Bus Infrastructure Assessment and Planning

NREL assesses the potential of currently available bus technologies to meet emissions regulations, operational feasibility, and life-cycle costs.

To explore the economics of fleet electrification, we developed the Vehicle and Infrastructure Cash-Flow Evaluation (VICE) modeling tool. VICE assesses the economic viability of purchasing and operating new electric vehicles compared to new conventional vehicles by evaluating upfront capital costs, annual operating costs, and expected service lifetime for fleets and charging infrastructure.

To support deployments of dynamic wireless-charging technology, we have developed two models:

A strategic planning model for optimizing dynamic wireless charging facilities and BEB battery capacity
A tactical planning model for an optimal charging schedule under the time-of-use tariff mechanism.

These models can support optimized, cost-effective deployments of electric fleets and charging infrastructure.