Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT)  previously engaged the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) at the University of South Florida (USF) to establish a reporting system, and CUTR has been collecting and reporting transit fleet performance and cost data to FDOT on a regular basis since 2012. FDOT is interested in continuing regular data collection, monitoring, and evaluation of field data on the performance and operating costs of alternative fuel transit vehicles currently being used in Florida and nationwide. Additionally, FDOT is interested in obtaining a more detailed knowledge about the hidden costs of training agency staff to handle alternative fuel vehicles, as well as the maintenance and fueling infrastructure investment requirements to operate alternative fuel bus fleets.

The current 2019 report, prepared by CUTR for FDOT, presents an analysis of the performance and costs of different alternative fuel transit technologies, based on the regular collection of maintenance, parts, and energy usage data of heavy-duty transit fleets in Florida. Additionally, this research summarizes the explicit and implicit costs of training transit agency staff to handle alternative fuel fleets, and evaluates the cost implications of modifying maintenance facilities to accommodate alternative fuels and of investing in fueling infrastructure to support alternative fuel bus fleets. The data for the training and infrastructure cost analysis were obtained through site visits and interviews of select fixed route transit agencies, including five Florida agencies and one out-of-state agency.

The results of this research provide policy makers with recent and reliable data on fuel and maintenance savings resulting from investments in nontraditionally fueled heavy-duty buses. However, due to the relatively small data sample of the different types of alternative fuel technologies operating in Florida, the results of this analysis should be interpreted with caution.

Follow the link to download the full report: Tracking and Evaluating Cost Implications of Alternative Fuel Buses & Infrastructure – CUTR Report