UTA to introduce zero-emission buses next year

Salt Lake City — (KUTV) Utah Transit Authority, in partnership with the University of Utah, will introduce a fleet of five battery-powered buses as early as next year.

A $5.4 million grant from the Federal Transit Association will allow UTA to purchase and study the fleet. It will serve downtown Salt Lake City and the University of Utah.

"Together with our partners Flyer, U of U, Calstart, [we'll explore] exactly how our buses will be specified and studied," said UTA's grants development administrator Alma Haskell.

The fleet of five will be the first fully battery-operated buses.

"These are fully battery operated. All of the drive power is operated by the battery. Heating systems may need some supplemental help on our coldest days," said Haskell. "Electric buses don't have quite the range that other buses do. So they will have to be used on specific routes. We're working together to figure out the best way to integrate them."

UTA spokesperson Remi Barron said the buses are the latest addition in UTA's attempt to cut down on pollutants.

"UTA has already reduced particulate emission drastically by 70 percent through purchasing compressed natural gas (CNG), clean diesel and hybrid diesel buses. Of course electric buses are zero emission so we want to start buying those."

They applied for the competitive grant in 2014 and were selected in 2015. UTA hopes to have the buses operational in 2017.

A full charge will allow a bus to travel up to 200 miles.

"If you put less battery on the bus and have on-route charging, you can go almost all day."

Part of the grant includes studying how the buses run.

"We'll have to work out exactly how we're going to fit these into our service operations as we study the data that we've got."