ChargePoint, the manufacturer of the charging equipment, has taken a lead on some of this demand management, Carr said. Th ere are ways to manage charging, to cap the demand peak. Using what ChargePoint developed on the automotive side, RTC is working on the high voltage DC charging to see what it can do to manage that on a fl eet. “Th e buses we have now charge at 480 Kw. Th e buses we’re going to get are going to charge at around 62-1/2,” Carr explained. “We’re not going to try and get this big surge of power; we’re going to spread it out and disperse it. Th ere will be ways to connect two chargers and charge at 125. Th ere will be ways to plug them all in and only charge a certain number of them.” Th e infrastructure they put in, they made scalable. Th e biggest cost is running cable long distances so they built a switchboard, like a power distribution center, inside the bus barn and can plug in chargers to that switchboard. Instead of running 15 cables to 15 chargers, there’s one cable to the switchboard and then they can distribute 15 cables from there. As for current costs, Carr said diesel is pretty inexpensive right now but RTC is still operating just below the diesel cost with its electric buses and even less on the diesel hybrid. He also said there are less parts, less maintenance, fewer systems to break. “All of those impacts, when you start calculating them into the overall equation, the bus is a better bus,” he said. 14 | Mass Transit | MassTransitmag.com | APRIL/MAY 2017 Mobile Payment Another way to make the service more appealing, particularly to a generation that oft en doesn’t carry cash, RTC began looking at mobile payment about a year and a half ago. Transit Planner Ed Park said they were also looking at this as an important cost-savings measure. Th ey were down to four vendors Park said and in the end, three gave price estimates. Th ey went with Token Transit for a number of reasons, including a lost cost per transaction and it didn’t require a monthly fee. A learning curve experience of the launch was the need to educate the riding public about the basics of using an app. A lot of the riders are low income and while some may think that means they don’t have smartphones, a lot have and use smartphones as the primary access to the Internet. However, Park said, they found many have more rudimentary smartphones, not many features or memory, and a lot of their riders don’t use apps. Th e app has a picture, color border and code word that changes every day that Leah Harnack/Mass Transit is posted each day for the operators. Th e picture moves on the screen so operators can see it’s live. While passenger convenience is a defi nite benefi t, another benefi t to the rider is that RTC can do something about capping. Park said buying seven day passes costs more in a month’s time than buying a monthly pass. “With capping, we don’t have this now but we’re working on it with them Token, you pay up to a certain point and that’s it. If you’re buying seven-day passes and you reach $65, the price of our monthly pass, you don’t pay any more than that. Th at’s a huge thing for economic justice for the people that really need it.” Th e app launched in December and as of March, accounted for 5 percent of fare revenue. In-House Assessment In an eff ort to improve customer service and become more effi cient and cost eff ective, RTC is moving its eligibility assessment for paratransit in house. RTC is also soon awarding a new contract for paratransit that focuses on a turnkey brokerage approach. YOUR CALL PRAY OR SPRAY KILLS BED BUGS For more information, visit www.MassTransitmag.com/10719358 RTC AND Proterra have partnered with the University of Nevada, Reno and others on an Intelligent Mobility project. The Proterra buses are equipped with cameras and sensors, which are used to gather data to be used for improving safety and efficiencies. Kostas Alexis, assistant professor at UNR, explained the driver is still in control, but he or she is augmented with more information. The data will also be used to investigate the possibility of automating such a big machine in a city setting. More information at MassTransitmag.com/12326485
MassTransit_AprilMay_2017
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