Cook charges a First Student school bus. He is overseeing fleet electrification projects occurring in about two dozen locations and counting across the U.S. and Canada.
There are 27 First Student electrification projects
underway that will utilize Cook’s design, including a 280-bus deployment in Quebec. Already, 40 percent of those electric school buses are in operation. The design is at the forefront of being utilized in 20
utility territories with plans in place for deployment to nearly 130 by 2024. Cook started with FirstGroup America in 2004 as the
chief engineer following a 20-year career with Cum- mins Engine. Over the years—including working for Greyhound—Cook has leveraged his knowledge and experience to build a team of engineers, mechanical and electrical experts to support more than 100,000 vehicles across the U.S. and Canada in the combined FirstGroup companies. About 40,000 of those vehicles are school buses. In 2009, Cook and his supplier-partner team at IMMI won the SAE Henry Ford Distinguished Award for Excel-
Our $1 trillion industry that was mainly focused on [traditional] OEMs has overnight exploded to a whole
lot of new
entities in our industry that weren’t there in the past. It’s fascinating to see this unfold and be a part of it.”-Alex Cook
lence for the design of the SafeGuard/Premier seat, which addresses school bus occupant protection in the event of severe deceleration. Cook maintains a strong network of relationships with various federal govern-
ment entities as well as vehicle and equipment manufacturers, providing him with a unique foresight into future industry needs, noted Hawkins. In so doing, Cook has explored factors (battery size, duty cycle, and matching the charging infrastructure to the duty cycle and the battery size) to produce reli- able, durable and safe school bus transportation solutions, he added. Another factor: the second life of the batteries. “When they hit 80 percent state of charge, those batteries in large case will no
longer do the duty cycle intended on the vehicle,” said Cook. “How hard do you charge? How hard do you drive them? What’s the environment they’re in? At some point, the battery is going to have to come out.” Cook’s technical solution focuses on removing the bus battery and placing it
into a cassette with its own battery thermal management system to be used as standby energy, which effectively doubles energy capacity overnight, he said. He said he is also exploring battery end of life. First Student is working with Red-
wood Materials to recycle the batteries, which Cook said nets 97 percent reusable materials. In previous years, there was no range anxiety with buses powered by diesel, gasoline, propane or CNG. “You weren’t so reliant on your own energy infrastructure for putting in enough
energy—filling the tank of the bus—to move the children,” he said. “If you can’t charge the bus, you’re not going to run the service. All of the wheels rolled around the OEM. We’re seeing a dilution of that because now the chargers are just as criti- cal as the bus.” That brings on considerations as to whose infrastructure, transformers and
switchgear gets used, he added. “Our $1 trillion industry that was mainly focused on [traditional] OEMs has over-
night exploded to a whole lot of new entities in our industry that weren’t there in the past,” Cook said. “It’s fascinating to see this unfold and be a part of it.”
24 School Transportation News • JULY 2022
PHOTO COURTESY OF FIRST STUDENT
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
