LEADING INNOVATION
Consortium Problems
As an example of classic consortium
problems that have successfully
helped to build CUTRIC, the $45
million Pan-Canadian Electric Bus
Demonstration & Integration Trial
is one of its marquee projects.
Manytransit agencies wanted to
go electric, but they were worried
about non-standardized charging.
“If you’re a reasonably sized transit
agency, like a mid-sized agency
with a few hundred buses but not
thousands, you might not have the
risk ability to endure a mistake,”
said Petrunic. “Especially when the
mistake costs a million dollars ...”
Transit agencies had that need
and had some money: the money
they would spend on diesel buses.
But, they didn’t have all the money
for the buses, the chargers, the
research and development, or the
technical engineering that had to go
into standardization, she explained.
Th ere were a lot of utilities that
wanted to see what the demand
would be if a bunch of buses pulled
on the grid at diff erent times of the
day at high power but they didn’t
have the clientele. Th ere were also
the manufacturers with products
but couldn’t sit down at the table
with competitors to standardize
technology, largely due to anti
trust legislation meant to avoid
collusion and corruption.
Petrunic stressed, “Classic consortium
problem.
“We all need standardization.
We all know it’s going to advance
the market. It’s technologically
diffi cult, but we’re willing to do it.
“We all have a little bit of money
but none of us has enough money
to do it all on our own. And, we
all have some brains and knowledge,
but we need the brains and
knowledge of everybody else at the
table to make the project happen.”
14 | Mass Transit | MassTransitmag.com | JULY/AUGUST 2018
CUTRIC
THE OVERHEAD chargers launching in phase one of
the Pan-Canadian Electric Bus Trial are 450 Kw.
The power level was pushed up to 450Kw to drive
down the number of minutes the bus has to charge;
the next step is pushing it up to 600 Kw.
safety
engineering
durability
support
partnership
Flooring systems engineered for transportation
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