ISE Corp. announced that it recently received an order for a fuel-cell hybrid bus to be delivered to the Greater Hartford Transit District in spring 2007. The delivery is in addition to three similar buses delivered to AC Transit in Oakland and one to SunLine Transit in Palm Springs, Calif., earlier this year.
The Greater Hartford Transit District announced at a Union Station press conference on Aug. 31 that it has contracted with UTC Power of South Windsor, Conn.; AC Transit of Oakland; Van Hool of Belgium, one of the world’s largest bus and coach manufacturers; and ISE Corp. of Poway, Calif., an integrator of hybrid-electric and integrated fuel-cell drive systems for buses, to provide a 40-foot hybrid-electric fuel cell-powered transit bus that will be used in revenue service.
A $2.9 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration to the Greater Hartford Transit District will pay for the bus and infrastructure to support future fuel-cell transportation projects in Greater Hartford. CTTRANSIT will operate the bus once it arrives in Hartford.
According to ISE, the many benefits of fuel cell-powered buses include quiet operation, fuel efficiency that is more than two times better than a standard diesel-powered bus, and zero harmful tailpipe emissions; also, their clean operation means they can have an immediate positive impact on street-level emissions.
“ISE’s partnership with AC Transit, Van Hool and UTC will produce an advanced bus that is quiet and fuel-efficient while producing zero-emissions,” says Tavin Tyler, program manager of fuel-cell vehicles at ISE. “The true test toward the commercialization of this technology is to put the technology into normal everyday operation and expect it to perform under these conditions.”
