How We Plan to Achieve a Zero-Emission Fleet
News Articles
08/14/2020
Every time someone takes public transit instead of a car, our community can literally breathe a bit easier. By operating a growing percentage of zero emission buses in our fleet, AC Transit is doing its part to keep thousands of cars off the roads and their resulting pollution out of the air. Central to our clean air initiatives are both forward-thinking service planning and innovative technologies that directly address some of the environmental challenges facing the Bay Area.
AC Transit has had a long, celebrated past with the deployment of zero emission buses (ZEBs) to reduce the pollution in our district. We have embraced the exhaust emission standards set by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for more than 15 years, establishing our first hydrogen fuel cell program in 2002. Since then, we have adopted operational practices and programs that proudly exceed state environmental standards. As funding allows, AC Transit continues to purchase and integrate new ZEBs into our fleet—prioritizing their deployment to several disadvantaged communities through our Clean Corridors Plan.
In December of 2018, CARB adopted a regulation called “Innovative Clean Transit” to transition all California transit buses away from using polluting fossil fuels. It requires that the purchase of new buses is 100% zero emission by the year 2040 and that each California transit agency submit a plan outlining their transition strategy. In addition to AC Transit’s longstanding use of hydrogen fuel cell buses, we have begun incorporating battery electric buses into our fleet with the same distinctive green tops. Running the fuel cell and battery electric buses in similar situations will provide us with valuable data comparing the two forms of technology in order to determine what works best for our service.
We have now strategically charted a path forward to meet the goal of a 2040 zero-emission bus fleet. You will find it here.