PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Some of Philadelphia’s yellow school buses are going green.
The Philadelphia School District is adding five electric school buses to its fleet of 400 diesel vehicles.
The district is using $290,000 from a federal Diesel Emissions Reduction Act grant, and $468,000 from a Pennsylvania Driving Forward grant to buy the buses.
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The electric buses cost more initially, but district fleet manager Bill Rosetti said they’re cheaper to operate.
“These buses run about $360,000, where your standard diesel bus runs about $130,000 to $135,000,” Rosetti said as bus drivers gathered at the school district’s Passyunk Avenue depot to see one of the new battery-powered buses.
“Over the future we save all that money in fuel, and we cut our maintenance in half. It is 65% less than running a diesel bus, between maintenance and fuel,” Rosetti added.
“That’s a big difference.”
Philadelphia is the first school district in the state to have electric buses, Rosetti said.
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The buses built by Quebec-based Lion Electric have lithium-ion batteries and can go 125 miles between charges.
The new electric buses are quiet. So quiet, in fact, that they play a three-note melody at speeds below 20 miles an hour so students will hear the bus approaching.
Tyra Cardwell, a 15-year veteran bus driver, checked out an electric 54-seat demonstration bus at the district’s Passyunk garage.
“It was different,” Cardwell said.
“It runs real smooth like a Tesla, kind of. You don’t really know that it’s moving.”
“I’m eager to drive the new bus,” she expressed. “I’m excited that we’re going to a higher level for our students.”
Most district students, about 65,000, ride SEPTA to school. 11,500 students rely on yellow buses for transportation.
Rosetti said the new buses should be rolling by October.
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