THOUGHT LEADER
School Bus Evolution: Fleet for the Future
Written by Robert Pudlewski U
nfortunately for the school bus indus- try’s public and private future, regulatory mandates and the current inflation driven economic environment will continue to
drive up the cost of equipment as well as maintenance and repairs. These two factors are causing fleet man- agers to take a hard look at their school buses this year and what it costs to operate them. Operating budgets are coming under fire for exceeding projections that were made during the past COVID-19 impacted period and the recent inflation trend, while also experiencing the worst ever driver and techni- cian shortage. All this is going on as our
industry is facing a monu- mental switch in what will power the near-future school bus. Michael Warner, the associate director of fleet management for Cobb County School District in Georgia recently said during a recent School Transportation Nation Podcast, “Not If electric power but when.” He went on to say that the complete cost of this zero-emission technological and paradigm shift is yet to be determined. Let’s review a couple of noteworthy points relative to the potential growth of future electric power school buses.
Now is the perfect time to examine your operation and pay closer attention to part purchases as well as the policies, procedures and process (Three “P’s”) to maintain your fleet.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers this as background, “The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Public Law 117-58 (the Bipartisan Infrastruc- ture Law or BIL) amends the Clean School Bus Program under Section 741 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (42 U.S.C. 16091) and provides $5 billion for the replacement of existing school buses with clean and zero-emission (ZE) school buses. For each fiscal year between 2022 and 2026, $500 million is available to fund zero-emission and clean school buses, and $500 million is available to
18 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2022
fund only zero-emission school buses. For the 2022 CSB Rebates, for which applications closed on Aug. 19, EPA offered $500 million, split in two equal pools of $250 mil- lion for clean school buses and ZE school buses. Funds are subject to availability and total awards may be higher or lower than the anticipated funds offered. Funding will not be provided for administrative expenses. EPA reserves the right to partially fund applications, reject all applications and make no selections under the program, or to make fewer selections than anticipated.” EPA is expected to announce another program this fall to award the remaining $500 mil- lion for the current fiscal year. Most electric powered pur- chases taking place are being supported by grants on the federal or state level. It should be noted that these grants are limit- ed in significantly impacting the total cost of our industry tran- sitioning to total zero emission electric. As an example, the new $500
million of federal support solely for zero-emissions school bus purchases for 2022, if used to fund the total cost of the bus, may be enough to cover only about 1,300 electric buses at
$375,000 each and some charging infrastructure at today’s pricing. But prices are increasing by the day, thanks to supply shortages mostly tied to the lithium need for batteries. Using todays cost estimates over the five years of the anticipated grant support, would provide some 6,000 electric buses of an approximately 500,000 North American school buses, under that grant mechanism. If the total grant was to only go toward electric buses, then the amount would be approximately 2,600 a year and 13,000 total over five years respectively. Achieving 100 percent zero emissions will require
everyone to ramp up their procurement budget to fund zero emission replacements in the future, possi-
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