Mayor John Tory gets behind wheel of electric bus as part of new TTC program

Mayor John Tory got a firsthand look at three different types of "all-electric eBuses" on Saturday as part of TTC plans to green its fleet.

The fully electric buses, which have zero emissions and no diesel components, are manufactured by three companies, BYD, New Flyer and Proterra. The TTC is expecting to get 30 in all, 10 from each manufacturer, for a total cost of $50 million by March 2019. The federal and provincial governments are contributing funds.

After getting behind the wheel of one of the demonstration buses at Richview Collegiate Institute, Tory told reporters in Etobicoke the TTC is aiming to have a "zero-emissions" fleet by 2040.

"I don't think people know yet of the big push that we have on in the city of Toronto to move our fleet to be emissions free by 2040. That sounds like a long way away but you have to start," Tory said at Ward 4 Community Environment Day.

"We are very serious in the city about making our greenhouse gas emission reduction targets that we have set," he said. 

Tory explained TTC buses contribute to the degradation of the environment through the use of diesel fuel, but the city and transit agency are determined to use greener technology through its eBus program. The TTC will test the buses "in our climate, on our streets" next spring, Tory said. 

Buses to make Toronto 'a greener city'

"With Earth Day coming up tomorrow, we thought it was an important day to showcase this initiative being undertaken by the TTC, which will save us money on the diesel fuel. It'll save emissions from harming from the environment," he said.

"And it really will just continue to move us into the vanguard of cities, in terms of being a greener city and meeting our climate change obligations and our greenhouse gas reductions."

Bem Case, the TTC's head of vehicle programs, said tests will measure how fast the buses travel, the range they can achieve, how well they perform in different temperatures, how their doors open depending on the weather and their corrosion.

"The buses are entirely new to us," Case said. 

The TTC board, which approved the purchase last November, will install the necessary infrastructure to power the vehicles, including charging equipment and software. 

Green said the TTC brought the demonstration buses together on Saturday also to enable its staff to become acquainted with the environmentally-friendly vehicles.

The TTC plans to have the buses in service sometime next year and hopes to get 30 more, he added.

'Only truly green technology'

In a November 2017 staff report, the TTC said the electric buses embody the future for the transit agency, which has about 2,000 buses in its fleet.

"Electric buses are the only truly green technology with the potential for zero emissions from generation through to bus operations. Electric buses have no tailpipe emissions, and in Ontario, generation of electricity for overnight charging is 100% nuclear and completely free of GHG emissions," the report reads.

The report notes the electric bus industry is "so new" that there are no large-scale fleets in long term operations anywhere in North America and therefore testing is crucial. 

Public transit is already environmentally friendly, the report added. "By its nature, mass transit is green," it says.

But adopting new technology too quickly can cause such problems as unreliable vehicles, low customer and operator satisfaction, and high maintenance and operation costs, it adds.

"As the TTC operates the largest bus fleet in Canada and the third largest in North America, however, we also have a role to play in the advancement of technologies that promise to offer significant safety, environmental, vehicle reliability, customer focused improvements."