The City of Ottawa showed off the newest edition to their bus fleet, four battery-electric buses. The new battery-electric buses will enter service in early 2022.
The 40-foot buses look and feel like the existing 40-foot diesel buses in the fleet. The buses will run in urban operation and be put on routes based on a range of 250 km.
OC Transpo, the transit operator in Ottawa in the early stages of its fleet conversion plan. They will add 74 battery-electric buses to the fleet in 2023.
The goal is to have 450 zero-emission buses phased into operation by 2027.
The City of Ottawa is using a gradual phase-out plan to replace diesel buses as they reach the end of life. Moreover, the City hopes to have a fully zero-emission bus fleet by 2036.
To support the new buses, the St-Laurent Garage has gone through several significant retrofits. The garage now has four plug-in style charging stations installed by Envari Energy Solutions, reports CityNews.
The fleet of four battery-electric buses can go from empty to fully charged in about five hours.
However, Ottawa is not the first transit company in Canada to go electric. Instead, they join Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton and Winnipeg in running battery-electric buses on Canadian roads.
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