The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority runs Buses and Light Rail trains. I already talked about my years of commuting via electric-powered Light Rail, CALTRAIN conventional diesel train, and an employer-provided diesel shuttle in this thread:
http://peakoil.com/forums/commuter-rail-infrastructure-t70017.htmlThe Santa Clara VTA also runs buses, which tie to the Light Rail system and for which you can use a transfer chit to ride both Light Rail and bus for a single fare. I seldom needed the bus but I know the recent history of the system and the technology being tested.
First of all, the 450+ buses in the system were originally all conventional diesel, of the older soot-spewing design. These existed in several sizes including the 60-foot-long articulated bus down to the 25-foot-long small size.
The alternatives tested included Hydrogen fuel-cell buses (zero emission tech), compressed natural gas (CNG) and modern diesel-electric hybrid buses. Flywheel energy storage (another zero emission tech) was considered but did not make it as far as the purchasing phase, as the recharging stations would have been extremely expensive to implement, because of the necessity to run high-capacity electric feeds.
The Hydrogen Fuel Cell buses held great hope for all the Greenies, because they were the only zero emission technology to make it through purchasing and into the evaluation phase. Unfortunately they were spectacular failures that soaked up about $56 million for only three buses. The short version is that the first three cost $3.5 million each to purchase, and a liquid hydrogen facility to fuel them, suitable for a residential area, soaked up a major portion of the rest. The buses were unreliable, costly to repair, and extremely difficult to get parts for. The final cost per mile for a 40-foot hydrogen fuel cell bus was $51.66, versus $1.61 for the existing conventional diesel bus of the same size.
In spite of this failure, the VTA has no choice in the matter, a state organization called the California Air Resources Board is mandating hydrogen fuel cell technology. The second generation hydrogen buses have declined in price from $3.5M each to $2.5M each, and there will be twelve of them:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_8365544Compressed Natural Gas is looking good and there will eventually be 40 of the largest 60-foot articulated buses under evaluation. These CNG buses are being purchased from New Flyer corp. of Winnepeg, Canada. There are currently 14 buses active in the fleet and several refueling stations. (The bus picture in this article is of a shorter 40-foot non-articulated bus.)
http://www.newflyer.com/index/2013_07_10_santa_clara_award So far the most successful technology evaluated by VTA is a modern diesel-electric hybrid, which saves about 25% of the fuel used by the standard diesel bus, while using urea injection and catalytic tech to eliminate 90% of all the exhaust pollution and 100% of the soot particulates. The buses are made by BAE systems in the large 60-foot articulated size:
http://www.hybridrive.com/hybrid-transit-bus.php...and a second vender of the large 60-foot articulated buses is Gillig LLC in nearby Hayward CA:
http://www.vta.org/News-and-Media/Newsroom/VTA-Board-Approves-Purchase-of-38-New-Buses#.VVBsNflVhBcThe diesel-electric hybrid buses comprise 20% of the VTA fleet and are steadily replacing the older diesel soot-spewers.
Of course, this is Silicon Valley - all buses, Light Rail, and Trains have WiFi connectivity so that you can work during your commute, or watch video-on-demand if that is your preference. They are also catering to older mobility-impaired people with low floor bus designs and wheelchair ramps for every bus and every bus stop. Finally they have bicycle racks on every bus and rail car, and bicycle lockers at the Park-and-Rides.