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"Bus Test Fleets", MTA Department of Buses, presentation & transcript (screen captures)

Posted by gOlD_12tH on Sun Mar 27 23:10:40 2011

Darryl Irick (MTA’s Department of Buses): "Bus Test Fleets”, Our goals. The current capital cycle were requires that to procure approximately 2,300 buses. So to achieve that we found advantages to try to test as many fleets and manufactures as possible. Different bus types, fleets and manufactures. The key areas that we be looking at is: Reliability – which is MDBF (Means Distance Between Failures), Fuel economy, The ability to maintain a bus, Vender support, and the manufacture ability to deliver the product, timely and with quality."

Darryl: “Our basic implementation scheme... is that we... to procure 7 test fleets, and 90 buses each. 3 different types of standard buses (40 foot) that are clean diesel, low-floor buses, and a head-to-head comparison in which we going to take 3 depots and put the…each one of these fleets will be 90 buses. So, what we gonna do is to take 3 of these fleets put 30 buses of each and 3 different depots. Is that right, Henry?”

Henry (MTA official): “That is correct,"

Darryl: "And, What is that going to get us?"

Henry: "We have 90 buses in Staten Island, 30 from each manufactures; 90 buses in Brooklyn, 30 from each manufactures; and 90 buses in Queens, 30 from each manufactures that would give me different duty cycles, and gives us real good information for the future procurement which would be competitive bid in the future."

Darryl: "And…To add, we gonna have 2 articulated fleets, two 60-footer articulated fleets and those would be done in solo comparisons and one commuter coach fleet. And I would like to speak to you the turbine bus later in the presentation, but we are actively exploring different propulsion systems, in a way to reduce carbon foot print and overall life cycle cost."

Darryl: "What we have is Nova. This project is awarded at the end of last year. Currently, we like... we happy to say that... have 3 buses that been delivered through us, thus far. There in pre-inspection period right now. This is the low-floor bus, 40 foot. Currently they make the articulated buses you see on the SBS (Select Bus Service)."

Darryl: "Next bus is Daimler, aka Orion… This bus is expected to be awarded this month. The bus if we... if that works for us, we should have the buses delivered by the end of the year."

Darryl: "New Flyer. This is also expected to be awarded this month. First buses to be expected to be delivered in July, with the ending of December. Just a little but about New Flyer, New Flyer is the manufacture of the current articulated buses with the exception of the SBS. So this is the first time we are entering into agreement with New Flyer on standard buses."

Darryl: "What we have is our SBS fleet made by Nova…. The project was awarded back in 2009. The results have been very impressive with the bus. The infinite MDBF results compare to infinite results of the New Flyer... has been extremely good. We have double the amount... fuel economy is up 25 percent versus the rest of the articulated fleet and with any luck. We are looking to proceed of procurement of 328 of these buses in the near future and that would replace our current (year) 2000 fleet and all of the residual 1998 fleet."

Darryl: "Here we have the New Flyer fleet, we are looking to get board approval in June. Currently the bus is on the shaker table, if it in fact... passes the shaker table, we look to enter the agreement with New Flyer. Like I said before, New Flyer is the manufacture of the current artic fleet that we have in the Bronx and Manhattan. Henry, can you gives us on the update of the shaker table and just let the folks... what’s that about?”

Henry: "This is would be first low floor articulated bus purchase from New Flyer. The bus is on the shaker table is up to a week ago. They have issues, they came up with fixes for it, they are implanted fixes and the bus is back on the shaker table. So... this bus has unique changes to previous buses. They reduce the weight of the bus by 2 tons and fixes that they have added to date has been added 600 pounds. So the bus is still lighter. The test is moving forward.”

Darryl: "Just for everyone to notice, shaker table test we use, to test structure integrity.”

Andrew Albert (MTA Board member): "I seem to recall a problem with New Flyer taking care of our current non-SBS articulated buses that came up on several meetings, they weren’t making good on contract issues, has all of that have been resolved that we are now considering buying a whole new fleet of them, from them?”

Henry: "Yes, Andrew. All these issues has been resolves. There’s been a change in the leadership of New Flyer. We have a settlement agreement with them and they have been step up on repaired the structure on every single New Flyer artic we have."

Darryl: "That’s currently happening, we almost completed with that, Andrew. Ok."

Daryl: "To satisfy our commuter coach and the needs. We are looking at Prevost. We never brought a bus from Prevost before, not the commuter coach. Our, you know…The only vender that we dealt in the past is been MCI, so we are excited to drum up some competition. The project was awarded in January of this year. The pilot is expected to be delivered be July, the last bus being a early next year, end of this year…early next year."

Daryl: "As I spoke before, we were very excited on this new technology bus, DesignLine. It’s a turbine bus and I’m quite sure, many of you seen this bus. We ran them in Manhattan…Unfortunately, DesignLine could not... how would you say, delivered to ‘primetime’. They try several integrations of their propulsion systems, we worked with them constantly however, it did not workout. So, we recently ceased and desist that contract and the good story is… It proved and validated our test and evaluation process and we were able to retrieve $4.2 million dollars on that."

Andrew: "That is ashamed, because. Joe, when Joe was here, he had us go ride these things and he was so excited. There was no lurch to this bus, what so ever. It started really smoothly. It was.”

Doreen Frasca (MTA board member): "You felt like it you were floating.”

Andrew: "It was smiling on the bus.”

Daryl: "Right.”

Doreen: "It’s a shame.”

Daryl: "On flat grounds, it was fine.”

Doreen: "On flat grounds? So the issue was the rutted streets? The undercarriage was…?”

Daryl: "No, it was the propulsion system. Power.”

Doreen: "Ok, ok.”

Henry: "The turbine was…propulsion system. The turbine was too small to handle our heat and a/c needs and upgraded to the larger one and the larger one kept failing. It was being overhaul every 300 hours.

Doreen: "Oh...”

Henry: "That is unacceptable. “

Doreen: "Oh, yeah.”

Henry: "We could not live with that. But, it was a successful test, though. It did prove that you can have hybrid components which are off the shelve motors at the fraction of the cost to the other hybrid technologies.”

Doreen: "Ok, so I notice that the test that you doing have some of these new fleets are in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, nothing in Manhattan were we have the most traffic and the most potholes, dare I say. How come we are not running any, any...”

Henry: "The 90... Nova artics, have been tested in Manhattan and the Bronx.

Doreen: "What routes are you testing those at?”

Henry: "M15 and the Bx12.”

Doreen: "Ok.”

Charles Moerdler (MTA board member): "Where are they in the Bronx?”

Daryl: "SBS”

Charles: "Where are they in the Bronx?”

Daryl: "Primary, is on the SBS. The Bx12.”

Jay Walder (dickhead of the MTA): "We are not, say. We not giving up on turbine buses. What we are saying is this one has not work right now. I think the authority has maybe for many of good reasons, you know, how the risk adverse approach in terms of buses. I think what Daryl and Henry are showing you is a step wise process of trying to open that up, get more competition in to the environment. As part of that, I think we also recognized when some things that are not quite working right, give the manufacture the opportunity to cure and go back and think further about it and we are not closing our eyes to it. Um, it was. All of us took a ride on that bus, it was sweet. But, I don’t think it would be very sweet for the obvious it doesn’t stand up what we need to do. So...”

Daryl: "What we though it was a great concept, it seems that it is not ready for ‘primetime’."

Daryl: "So, our next steps is to...- Award and evaluate all remaining test fleets. - Continue to solicit the participation of other manufactures. - Apply “lesson learned” and expand competition on future bus procurements. - Explore new technologies, such as a full electric bus. And that concludes.”

Jay: “Questions and discussions?”

One of the MTA Board question: “Is there a full electric bus out there to uses a starting point?”

Daryl: “Yes, there is.”

Henry: “Currently, Volvo Trucks is the parent company of Nova Bus and Nova Bus sent a full bus over to China. It has a partnership with SunWin, which produces electric buses in Japan, uh… China, sorry. They are going to outfit the Nova Bus with the electric propulsion system and bring it back to the United States and they going to slot me with a test bus next year.”

Allen Cappelli (MTA Board member): “The three borough, 90 bus test, are they 90 at the same buses or are they mixed?”

Daryl: “Henry! You do it for the head-the-head comparisons.”

Henry: “The 90 buses will be split among the three boroughs. So one depot will have 30 of each manufacture, that 90 new buses, but that head to head comparisons 3 different manufactures.”

Alan: “So we are testing 3 different buses?”

Henry: “Correct!”

Alan: “Ok, I would like to dispute that Doreen’s, Staten Island; I think continues to be the leader in potholes. So….”

Charles: “With respect, The Bronx claim that privilege.”

[laughing….]

Jay Walder’s long ass bloated speech: “I think this topic will leave to others… so, I think it falls outside the mandate of MTA, unless the potholes is on the Bridges. You know, I think the real importance of this is, there is been long and frankly sorry history of MTA not be able to get a lot of competition in the bus market place in to what we are doing. What ever you think about what we do competition is critically important to be able to do it. And I think what you are you seeing here from what Daryl and Henry have presented is, his approach to be able to do that. You also seeing approach to in which manufactures saying that if they are qualified to be able to sell to us low or open more facilities in New York and do things in that nature. I think it really does, you know the last thing in the world we want to have is to do discussion with one manufacture in New York and another manufactures some other place, we really want to have the discussions about multiple manufactures in New York and how they competing to get our orders and business and be able to do that. We don’t represent on the bus side of the house, the same dominance over the industry that we do on the rail side house and the rail side of the house where two out of every three route cars that are purchasing in the United States. On the bus side of the house, it is clearly still the largest bus system. But, but there are many more buses being purchase else where. So, I think the reality is…that I think what we are see here is the effort to be ride on technologies that are out there, ride on the bases of things; give the manufactures the risk of adverse way starting to work with us, so they don’t end up in a position in which they are losing their shirt as well. And hopefully at the end of this process in a year or so that we can look and see say that we have, you know, more then one or two manufactures who are building different types of buses for us and allow us to make judgments of what type of bus we actually like to have. If this works, that what we should be and I think again, something the committee should be watching in terms of the progress that how is going ability to be able to do this so we move to the substantial bus replacements so we have schedule in latter part of this capital program with the degree of confidence about the manufacturing industry being their support us. “

Charles: “One final question if I may, have we…has MTA concluded that Double Deckers just don’t work in places like Manhattan?”

Henry: “We don’t have the facility to fit the bus in and when we have the test bus, we have to fuel outside the depot, change tires outside the garage, we have to vacuum the farebox outside the garage. So right now, we have no facility to accept the vehicle that big.”