TransLink Future - Dream's and Aspirations

[8010]

3 hours ago, cleowin said:

Maple Ridge should add community shuttle service to Silver Valley, it's built up now, although im not sure how much service would get used considering it's mostly a car community. not many renters up there

The 741 does go to Silver Valley, not the best route but it gets the job done.

[Millennium2002]

The delivery of the new BAE hybrids and TransLink's supposed reasons for purchasing them has got me thinking... Can we convert them to trolleybuses at some point? There are three main constraints that I can see:

- Maximum bus / vehicle weights - Trolley poles and springs shouldn't add that much weight to the bus, but I could be wrong

- Maximum bus / vehicle heights - this might be the deal-breaker, because the roof is already occupied by batteries and such

- Whether the BAE hybrid system is plug-and-play or not - given TransLink's reasoning, I can't see why this would be an issue

[cleowin]

9 minutes ago, Millennium2002 said:

The delivery of the new BAE hybrids and TransLink's supposed reasons for purchasing them has got me thinking... Can we convert them to trolleybuses at some point? There are three main constraints that I can see:

- Maximum bus / vehicle weights - Trolley poles and springs shouldn't add that much weight to the bus, but I could be wrong

- Maximum bus / vehicle heights - this might be the deal-breaker

- Whether the BAE hybrid system is plug-and-play or not

The plan is to potentially convert them into Electric buses at its mid-life overhaul.

[GrandeWest_B35G]

Could the trolleys potentially be converted to battery electric?

[cleowin]

End of 2019 Fleet Projections

- All D40LF's retired & D60LF's retired

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QATxfcSBCNxTo69ScBB5o1OXoG2Vt43TKmfDn0N5h_4/edit#gid=151886761

 

 

[8010]

When it comes to the battery-electric bus pilot I think TL should've picked more than one route to do the trial. I did mention doing the Surrey Central - Newton routes (323, 324, 325, 335, 393) before as there would be more route variety for the trial. I'm not saying that the Surrey/Newton routes don't experience delays, but the 100 is one route that often experiences delays of up to 15 minutes, which can impact charging times during layover. If the trial on the 100 is successful maybe they could test out battery-electric buses in Surrey/North Delta or even Coquitlam on more than a single route.

[GrandeWest_B35G]

22 minutes ago, 8010 said:

When it comes to the battery-electric bus pilot I think TL should've picked more than one route to do the trial. I did mention doing the Surrey Central - Newton routes (323, 324, 325, 335, 393) before as there would be more route variety for the trial. I'm not saying that the Surrey/Newton routes don't experience delays, but the 100 is one route that often experiences delays of up to 15 minutes, which can impact charging times during layover. If the trial on the 100 is successful maybe they could test out battery-electric buses in Surrey/North Delta or even Coquitlam on more than a single route.

Perhaps TransLink wanted to see how being late affects battery electric buses

[Millennium2002]

2 hours ago, cleowin said:

The plan is to potentially convert them into Electric buses at its mid-life overhaul.

Correct. I'm aware of that and vaguely alluded to that in my post. But that also got me thinking. If it is possible to change them to purely battery-electric buses, then can we not strap poles to them as well? 

[cleowin]

What is everyone's prediction for what eventually replaces the 07/08 NOVA LFS out of BTC? My preference would be XD40's, but.. we all know TL wont order those, so are we looking at Nova HEV Bae's? Or NFI XDE40 Bae's?

 

Or ... are we looking into XE40 / Nova LFS-E instead for BTC?

[Pops1719]

Just now, cleowin said:

What is everyone's prediction for what eventually replaces the 07/08 NOVA LFS out of BTC? My preference would be XD40's, but.. we all know TL wont order those, so are we looking at Nova HEV Bae's? Or NFI XDE40 Bae's?

 

Or ... are we looking into XE40 / Nova LFS-E instead for BTC?

I'd like XDE40 BAEs

 

[anyfong]

On 3/3/2019 at 7:10 PM, Millennium2002 said:

The delivery of the new BAE hybrids and TransLink's supposed reasons for purchasing them has got me thinking... Can we convert them to trolleybuses at some point? There are three main constraints that I can see:

- Maximum bus / vehicle weights - Trolley poles and springs shouldn't add that much weight to the bus, but I could be wrong

- Maximum bus / vehicle heights - this might be the deal-breaker, because the roof is already occupied by batteries and such

- Whether the BAE hybrid system is plug-and-play or not - given TransLink's reasoning, I can't see why this would be an issue

I vaguely remember seeing a post about a pilot project for STL Laval to convert one of their Nova BAE HEV into a fully electric bus. Can't find that post unfortunately. The STL and many other transit agencies in Quebec operate the same hybrid bus type as 18301-18404.

[Transit geek]

Wellington, New Zealand is going through a similar situation since their trolleybus lines were taken down in October 2017. They have been proposing to retrofit its 2009-built DesignLine trolleys with turbine-electric powertrains, though plans have stalled recently.

As it turned out, they did manage to convert a single trolley to full-electric propulsion. (credit to https://www.flickr.com/photos/wellingtontrolleybuses/)

 

[8010]

On 2/13/2019 at 1:19 PM, translink said:

This doesn't look half bad. Some routes look a little too long, and/or too many stops. I'll get into more detail later on.

Most of the routes on the map are part of TransLink's own area and regional plans. As for the stopping procedures, I've tried to even it out as evenly as possible, but I do see where you are coming from and I am currently in the process of removing some stops from certain routes.

[cleowin]

I wish someone would tell translink to stop ordering ZF transmissions, allison is the way to go for CNG buses. None of our ZF transmission vehicles sound good

[cleowin]

Regarding the future of STC’s D40LF’s.

when HTC receives its 47 2019 XN40’s,

i could see them transferring 25-30 Nova HEV’s to VTC,

which in turn would mean the rest of the LFS transfer to RTC.

this could in turn mean sending the XD40’s to STC to retire the remaining D40LF’s?

id say the 2014 XN40’s (9) also goto STC, and perhaps 8-13 2016 XN40’s as well.

Thoughts?

[Translink69]

44 minutes ago, cleowin said:

Regarding the future of STC’s D40LF’s.

when HTC receives its 47 2019 XN40’s,

i could see them transferring 25-30 Nova HEV’s to VTC,

which in turn would mean the rest of the LFS transfer to RTC.

this could in turn mean sending the XD40’s to STC to retire the remaining D40LF’s?

id say the 2014 XN40’s (9) also goto STC, and perhaps 8-13 2016 XN40’s as well.

Thoughts?

VTC isn’t taking anything. All the 18’ Novas are pushing older ones out. 

[martin607]

On ‎3‎/‎4‎/‎2019 at 12:10 AM, Millennium2002 said:

The delivery of the new BAE hybrids and TransLink's supposed reasons for purchasing them has got me thinking... Can we convert them to trolleybuses at some point? There are three main constraints that I can see:

- Maximum bus / vehicle weights - Trolley poles and springs shouldn't add that much weight to the bus, but I could be wrong

- Maximum bus / vehicle heights - this might be the deal-breaker, because the roof is already occupied by batteries and such

- Whether the BAE hybrid system is plug-and-play or not - given TransLink's reasoning, I can't see why this would be an issue

I don't think there would be any problem with weight or height. Traditional trolleybuses weigh about the same as standard diesel buses. Battery electric buses are the ones which suffer from a weight penalty which sometimes means that their passenger capacity is restricted in some countries by 10% to 15%. Most trolleybuses being built now have batteries to allow for up to say 20km independent off-wire service, so at face value it ought to be feasible to use the hybrid's batteries on a trolleybus. I read somewhere that BAE would be willing to produce a trolleybus but that's probably theoretical.

One issue to consider might be space on the roof. Obviously you need a certain area of roof space to put the trolley collection gear so it is possible that the existing batteries might need repositioning. 

One technical point is that re-use as a trolleybus would require a DC to DC converter to give galvanic isolation. Hybrids and battery buses only have single electrical insulation whereas traditional trolleybuses need double insulation because they are connected to a live network. The latest development in Europe is the DC to DC converter (made by ABB). It isolates the trolleybus electrically from the overhead network and would make the repurposing of the single insulated bus safe.

Obviously this would all have to be done by electrical engineers, it would probably need more that just in-house people to do the engineering.

On ‎3‎/‎4‎/‎2019 at 12:35 AM, Imgursdownvote4love said:

Could the trolleys potentially be converted to battery electric?

Technically, I'm not sure whether they have been engineered for their bodies to carry one to two tons of batteries.

But why would you want to do that? Spending money on converting a 100% electric bus to another type of 100% electric bus seems a waste of money. In any event, the current fleet of trolleys is due to retire in less than 10 years, so by the time you did the planning and procurement it would probably be uneconomic.

[cleowin]

2 hours ago, Translink69 said:

VTC isn’t taking anything. All the 18’ Novas are pushing older ones out. 

Isnt the plan to make VTC completely alternate energy? VTC is still going to have approximately 25-30 LFS left after the 2018 order is complete. SO why not send HTC HEV's to VTC to push out the rest of the LFS to RTC? RTC clearly is staying diesel for 40 footers. No plans to allocate any nova's to STC, so what options are there? I really dont see why they are even giving HTC the 2019 XN40 order when it would make more sense to simply assign the 2019 XN40 strictly to STC

[FlyingPig]

Honestly STC should get all of the 47 XN40s. In my opinion, the 319 and 502 should not be run with artics. They should be run at 3-5 minute frequencies with 40’ buses. An extra 47 buses will allow for 319 and 502 expansion, an extra bus on select routes during peak periods, and retirement of D40LFs.

Or, they can use them for route expansion. How about Ladner to Langley? Or maybe Scott Road to Cloverdale on the SFPR. Maybe we could do Scott Road to Carvolth  - call it the 545 - on the SFPR and Highway 1, to alleviate 555 crowding. Just some dreams. But the 47 XN40s should be for STC.

Then, VTC sends some extra 09 HEV’s to HTC, 09 LFS’ to RTC, and everyone is happy!

The reason why I say 40’s on higher frequencies are better than 60’s on the 319 and 502 is that they are purely local routes. Right now, I’m visiting Guangzhou, China, and every single bus is 40’ or even 35’. Mostly BYD K8’s and Skywell 12m buses. There are practically no express routes. And their frequency? 3-4 minutes headway. This is how Guangzhou makes their stop by stop buses work - and it works.

[FL04DIFN]

Not to go off topic here, but I just overheard rumors from a bus driver that the Metrotown bus loop will close, and all buses will board on Central Blvd, and the 19 will loose trolleys.

[Thomasw]

13 minutes ago, Evan Hancock said:

Not to go off topic here, but I just overheard rumors from a bus driver that the Metrotown bus loop will close, and all buses will board on Central Blvd, and the 19 will loose trolleys.

Sounds like a bunch of BS to me

[FL04DIFN]

Just found something out here. The Canada Line is actually under contract??? What will happen in 2044? Line will shut down???

[dover5949]

59 minutes ago, Evan Hancock said:

Not to go off topic here, but I just overheard rumors from a bus driver that the Metrotown bus loop will close, and all buses will board on Central Blvd, and the 19 will loose trolleys.

Correct the loop will be eventually closing. There will be  a new loop across the street by the current station. I have not seen the plans for the new loop, but guaranteed the 19 will still be trolley. 

25 minutes ago, Evan Hancock said:

Just found something out here. The Canada Line is actually under contract??? What will happen in 2044? Line will shut down???

The Canada Line will not shut down. It will either still be Protrans or a new contractor. Do yourself a favour, don't believe rumors! 

[8010]

Pretty sure the Canada Line's operations are being moved over to BCRTC once the ProTrans contract is up.

[GORDOOM]

36 minutes ago, 8010 said:

Pretty sure the Canada Line's operations are being moved over to BCRTC once the ProTrans contract is up.

Some combination of that, and being shut down for a while for massive upgrades. If capacity on that corridor is limited now, imagine what it will be like by 2040.