By the summer, 50 percent of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey’s operating shuttle bus fleet at the region’s three major airports will be all-electric.
Twelve buses are already in operation: Six at Newark Liberty International Airport and six at John F. Kennedy International Airport. An additional six buses will come to LaGuardia Airport by the end of June.
Newark Liberty International Airport. (QWESY QWESY/ WIKIMEDIACOMMONS.ORG)
The 18 buses make up 50 percent of the full fleet being converted from diesel to electric power. The Port Authority is now targeting the end of 2020 to have a 100-percent electric shuttle bus fleet, accelerating the agency’s original goal.
New charging stations to power this first phase of electric bus deployment have been installed as part of the program at each airport.
The buses in the first deployment phase will save about 269 tons of greenhouse gas emissions and about 40,000 gallons of diesel fuel at each airport each year. These zero-emissions buses will improve local air quality by removing about 2,000 pounds of nitrous oxide and 150 pounds of particulate matter from the air each year. The buses – battery-operated and 40-feet long – have an estimated range of about 250 miles per charge, with each charge taking less than four hours.
The electric bus program is a key component of the Port Authority’s “Clean Dozen” environmental and sustainability agenda, designed to meet the goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent by 2025, and advancing its long-term goal of an 80-percent reduction in all emissions by 2050.
The agency’s Clean Dozen initiatives were rolled out in October 2018, at the same time the Port Authority board of commissioners embraced the Paris Climate Agreement, becoming the first public transportation agency in the United States to commit to the global climate agreement.
