Out with the old, in with the new for TTC bus fleet

Sarah Butzen

EVERGEEK MEDIA

Torontonians who have avoided taking transit because some buses were non-accessible need not sweat it anymore. The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) recently retired the last of its ironically-named “New Look” model buses (circa 1959), making its fleet entirely accessible and almost half hybrid.

Out with the old, in with the new — namely 150 new Orion VII buses.

TTC incorporated its first lift-equipped buses, Orion Vs, back in 1996. The new Orion VIIs are the low-slung, low-floor, no-lift numbers accessible to wheelchairs and scooters right from the curb.

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With this upgrade, all 170-odd TTC routes will be serviced by accessible buses, noted for their telltale blue lights and wheelchair graphic by the door. Moreover, the new Orion VIIs are bike rack equipped as well. Each bus has two wheelchair/scooter-ready spaces, and can carry two bicycles at a time.

Aesthetically, Orion VIIs certainly look modern, what with their “swept snub” silhouettes, continuous-glass windows, concealed seams and hinges et al; if Ikea and Apple got together to make a bus, this is maybe what they’d make.

However, beauty is only sheet metal deep; these are just regular new diesel engine buses, albeit appreciably fuel-efficient, burning “clean” diesel, and made with full accessibility in mind.

What the TTC did not order was more of those Orion VII Next Generation HybriDrive buses, a name so utterly futuristic that they might as well have included “Flux Capacitor” in there somewhere.

Beyond the same outward prettiness and longer name, the next-gen Orion VII HybriDrive is, of course, a hybrid.

The TTC already has almost 700 diesel/electric hybrids, which account for about 40 per cent of its fleet.

Daimler Buses, which owns the Orion brand, asserts that its latest Orion VII HybriDrive buses provide efficiency and cost savings even when compared to other types of hybrid buses. A hybrid’s hybrid, so to speak. Daimler points to improved electrical efficiencies and cooling systems as well as a remarkable reliability measure called MDBF, or “Mean Distance Between Failures.”

New York City Transit, for example, has some 815 Orion VII hybrids in service which have proven to be 260 per cent more reliable than its older buses; they go an average 10,343 miles before needing service, compared to 3,966 miles for the rest of its fleet.

The fuel efficiency gains in New York is likewise impressive: for the first 20 million miles travelled, they’ve saved 2 million gallons of diesel fuel and 26,000 tons of CO2. If that savings applied to the 124 million kilometres (77 million miles) travelled by TTC buses in 2010, the savings would equate to about 30 million litres of fuel saved and more than 100 tons of CO2 per year stayed.

The aforementioned HybriDrive technology in these ‘brids was created by BAE Systems. Its modular system uses a diesel engine to power a generator which, in turn, powers an electric traction motor that powers the wheels and also charges a rack of lithium batteries. Said battery rack resides on the top of the bus along with the system’s control module.

Along with regenerative braking (where the energy used for slowing and stopping is also converted into electricity), the Orion VII is basically an electric bus that brings its own battery charger along for the ride.

Now, if you’re a TTC aficionado — and hey, who isn’t? — you probably remember the mild kerfuffle in 2008 when it turned out that some recently acquired Orion VII hybrids weren’t delivering much efficiency bang for the fairly steep buck TTC had invested. The model’s lead-acid batteries were showing a tendency to fail well short of their 5-year lifespan. But those were the old Orion VIIs for you, poor things. The lithium-ion batteries of the new model VIIs are not only looking to hit a 6-year lifespan, but they’re 1,360 kg/3,000 pounds lighter are considerably more svelte, which nets yet better fuel and environmental savings.

The TTC has been quietly retrofitting its earlier Orion VII hybrids with this new battery technology.

The new Orion hybrid also seems to have shed any suspicion of being underpowered — a broad-stroke criticism of hybrids in general. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which has 86 HybriDrive buses in service, has not only declared them to be its cleanest and quietest (after trolley buses) but has also deemed the Orion VII hybrid “the best hill climber in the fleet.” Considering the City by the Bay’s freakishly steep topography, that’s quite the accolade.

Already boasting the third-largest fleet of buses in North America, second only to New York City and Los Angeles, the TTC now ranks 2nd in terms of number of hybrid buses in service, second again to New York City.

When it comes to wheelchair and scooter friendliness, however, nothing tops TTC’s 100 per cent accessibility.

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