News Release

Release date: Dec. 3, 2001

Metro Transit considers cutting-edge technology for purchase of new buses

A prototype bus will hit the roads of King County next year, allowing Metro Transit to monitor the promising development of hybrid diesel-electric buses as a way to increase transit productivity while protecting the environment.

"Sometime soon, Metro Transit will need to replace more than 200 buses that can operate in the bus tunnel as well as on the surface streets throughout King County," said King County Executive Ron Sims. "We believe hybrid technology has the potential to meet those needs, and that is why we are purchasing a cutting-edge hybrid diesel-electric bus to add to our fleet next year."

Sims and staff from the King County Department of Transportation got an up-close look at one of these new buses today, as a preview of a hybrid bus that will be delivered to Metro next April. When it arrives, the prototype bus will be road tested extensively in a variety of transit situations and on numerous routes to gauge performance and cost effectiveness.

In these hybrid buses, electricity is generated with a small diesel engine. It is the same clean-air technology used in the hybrid compact cars that King County recently bought for its fleet, only in a larger vehicle.

Early use of these types of transit buses in New York and California indicate the new technology reduces fuel consumption by 20 to 40 percent, and exhaust emissions are reduced by 90 percent. They also seem to have improved on-road performance.

"It appears these buses are as clean as compressed natural gas vehicles," said Sims, "plus they could be cheaper to run than most of our current fleet of buses."

Sims said depending on the testing next year, Metro Transit may be contracting for a fleet of hybrids in 2003, to be delivered in 2004.

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