dtwtransit Posted October 23, 2022 Report Share Posted October 23, 2022 Looks like the AAATA is fixing to ditch diesel and go zero-emissions after the existing Nova orders. They're weighing four plans to replace the diesel fleet with either battery-electric or hydrogen, following either the current rate of 8 buses per year (keeping every diesel unit in service for the full 12 years) or speeding up to 14 buses a year to replace all the diesels by 2030 (per the City of Ann Arbor's carbon neutrality plans). Battery electric might mean LFSe(+) which would be cool, or maybe Proterras, which I wouldn't complain about either. I think the regular LFSe would make perfect sense for TheRide, as a small enough system where almost every route hits one of the three major transit centers. The buses already sit at Blake long enough that they could easily get a full charge before leaving, and probably cover a round trip on their routes before needing another charge. Plus that'd make AAATA the first US operator of another Canadian bus, lol. Fuel cell on the other hand... might mean A2 would go back to Flyer after all these years - or ElDo too I suppose; I don't think AAATA would be above running Axesses. https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2022/10/ann-arbor-transit-system-weighing-pros-and-cons-of-electric-buses.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns8401 Posted October 24, 2022 Report Share Posted October 24, 2022 21 hours ago, dtwtransit said: Looks like the AAATA is fixing to ditch diesel and go zero-emissions after the existing Nova orders. They're weighing four plans to replace the diesel fleet with either battery-electric or hydrogen, following either the current rate of 8 buses per year (keeping every diesel unit in service for the full 12 years) or speeding up to 14 buses a year to replace all the diesels by 2030 (per the City of Ann Arbor's carbon neutrality plans). Battery electric might mean LFSe(+) which would be cool, or maybe Proterras, which I wouldn't complain about either. I think the regular LFSe would make perfect sense for TheRide, as a small enough system where almost every route hits one of the three major transit centers. The buses already sit at Blake long enough that they could easily get a full charge before leaving, and probably cover a round trip on their routes before needing another charge. Plus that'd make AAATA the first US operator of another Canadian bus, lol. Fuel cell on the other hand... might mean A2 would go back to Flyer after all these years - or ElDo too I suppose; I don't think AAATA would be above running Axesses. https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2022/10/ann-arbor-transit-system-weighing-pros-and-cons-of-electric-buses.html A full charge takes 7 minutes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns8401 Posted October 28, 2022 Report Share Posted October 28, 2022 2200-2207 Have been delivered. As the fleet number implies these are 2022’s. Saw 2207 out and about tonight. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dtwtransit Posted October 30, 2022 Report Share Posted October 30, 2022 Does this mean there's a 2100-2107 in service too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns8401 Posted October 30, 2022 Report Share Posted October 30, 2022 5 hours ago, dtwtransit said: Does this mean there's a 2100-2107 in service too? No. This is the second order after much production delays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doglover44 Posted November 25, 2022 Report Share Posted November 25, 2022 What is the order ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns8401 Posted November 25, 2022 Report Share Posted November 25, 2022 5 hours ago, doglover44 said: What is the order ? 8 40’ Nova LFS’s… second order out of 5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns8401 Posted December 21, 2022 Report Share Posted December 21, 2022 On 10/27/2022 at 10:35 PM, ns8401 said: 2200-2207 Have been delivered. As the fleet number implies these are 2022’s. Saw 2207 out and about tonight. These have been renumbered 538-545. This leaves room for 2020 Nova's 2000-2007 to be renumbered 530-537 at some later point I suppose. 2019 Gilligs 1930-1937 won't be renumbered apparently. 538-545 have the 2200 series numbers on the roof still. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dtwtransit Posted January 29 Report Share Posted January 29 Apparently the '22 Novas have been renumbered to #538-545 now... This is pretty disappointing to me as I like year-based numbering schemes, since they make it easy to tell the series apart. It'll take memorization to know at-a-glance that #540 is a Nova and not just another breadbox. What really gets me is that they only renumbered the '22s- so the '20s will remain the odd ones out as 2000-2007, not meshing with the sequence of the other units. They also could've keep the 19s' numbering scheme for these (which combines the model year with the sequential position) so I don't get why they reverted back to the scheme used pre-2019. On the note of the Novas, I had pretty good luck spotting them today. All the buses running the 4 were Novas, and at least 3 of the '22 units were out. I caught three '20s and two '22s just milling around the outskirts of town. I also caught one of the old hybrid BRTs, a 2010 unit. A friend who was in town saw another as well. Given all the older BRTs we've seen at that lot on S Industrial and the arrival of new Novas, I'm pretty convinced the '10s (#457-460) are the oldest buses still in service at TheRide. Before this trip I threw together my own roster of the AAATA fleet (assuming everything older than #457 is retired) and noticed that the only breadboxes we've seen rewrapped are '19s. I have a feeling it'll just be those that get the new livery. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns8401 Posted January 29 Report Share Posted January 29 2 hours ago, dtwtransit said: Apparently the '22 Novas have been renumbered to #538-545 now... This is pretty disappointing to me as I like year-based numbering schemes, since they make it easy to tell the series apart. It'll take memorization to know at-a-glance that #540 is a Nova and not just another breadbox. What really gets me is that they only renumbered the '22s- so the '20s will remain the odd ones out as 2000-2007, not meshing with the sequence of the other units. They also could've keep the 19s' numbering scheme for these (which combines the model year with the sequential position) so I don't get why they reverted back to the scheme used pre-2019. On the note of the Novas, I had pretty good luck spotting them today. All the buses running the 4 were Novas, and at least 3 of the '22 units were out. I caught three '20s and two '22s just milling around the outskirts of town. I also caught one of the old hybrid BRTs, a 2010 unit. A friend who was in town saw another as well. Given all the older BRTs we've seen at that lot on S Industrial and the arrival of new Novas, I'm pretty convinced the '10s (#457-460) are the oldest buses still in service at TheRide. Before this trip I threw together my own roster of the AAATA fleet (assuming everything older than #457 is retired) and noticed that the only breadboxes we've seen rewrapped are '19s. I have a feeling it'll just be those that get the new livery. Their lowest numbered bus is currently 443. So 443-456 are somewhere. Also if you notice the '22 Novas were renumbered to 538-545 which leaves room for the '20s to become 530-537. That should leave 1930-1937 as the odd ducks out. They should have just renumbered all of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dtwtransit Posted February 23 Report Share Posted February 23 Went back to A2 yesterday to spot; my observations cleared up a few things. I went back to that city-owned lot at 2000 S Industrial (which I've dubbed the "Gillig Graveyard") and found #444 and #456 still sitting there (as they were when I visited in May 2021). A couple of others around that range of fleet numbers (#445 & #455) were still out and about, however, so I was definitely wrong in assuming retirements of all those older Gillig BRTs. You might notice something odd about the headsigns on #445... it seemed to be running with with some different programming. The text was aligned to the right, and strangely, out of "28 Pauline to Maple & Pennsylvania," only "to" and "Pennsylvania" displayed in mixed case. At least one other unit was doing this, and it was also running route 28. On the subject of #526... As part of some transit accessibility research I'm doing back in Metro Detroit, I got to reading about AAATA's onboard securements. I learned that as part of a trial a few years, ago ten units were equipped with the Q'Straint Quantum automatic wheelchair restraint, each branded with a red "Equipped with Quantum" badge next to the front door. Since I know someone who depends on Quantum-equipped buses to transport their wheelchair, I set out to determine which lucky ten had one: my spotting yielded #520, #521, #522, #523, #524, #526, #528, and #529. I figure it would be a reasonable assumption that #525 and #527 also have them. Finally, the new livery rewraps... #1936 and #1937, which we'd already known about, were the only Gilligs I'd seen wrapped in the new scheme; plenty of other '19s were still out in the old colors. #1930 and #1935 are wrapped with adverts. One last thing; I saw that supervisor unit #948 (a Ford Flex) has this fun license plate: There are also some new units in the ARide fleet: a mix of newer ElDo Aerotechs in a monochrome scheme, and what appear to be Starcrafts in the new livery. I didn't see any of the old sky-blue Challengers. 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns8401 Posted February 24 Report Share Posted February 24 23 hours ago, dtwtransit said: Went back to A2 yesterday to spot; my observations cleared up a few things. I went back to that city-owned lot at 2000 S Industrial (which I've dubbed the "Gillig Graveyard") and found #444 and #456 still sitting there (as they were when I visited in May 2021). A couple of others around that range of fleet numbers (#445 & #455) were still out and about, however, so I was definitely wrong in assuming retirements of all those older Gillig BRTs. You might notice something odd about the headsigns on #445... it seemed to be running with with some different programming. The text was aligned to the right, and strangely, out of "28 Pauline to Maple & Pennsylvania," only "to" and "Pennsylvania" displayed in mixed case. At least one other unit was doing this, and it was also running route 28. On the subject of #526... As part of some transit accessibility research I'm doing back in Metro Detroit, I got to reading about AAATA's onboard securements. I learned that as part of a trial a few years, ago ten units were equipped with the Q'Straint Quantum automatic wheelchair restraint, each branded with a red "Equipped with Quantum" badge next to the front door. Since I know someone who depends on Quantum-equipped buses to transport their wheelchair, I set out to determine which lucky ten had one: my spotting yielded #520, #521, #522, #523, #524, #526, #528, and #529. I figure it would be a reasonable assumption that #525 and #527 also have them. Finally, the new livery rewraps... #1936 and #1937, which we'd already known about, were the only Gilligs I'd seen wrapped in the new scheme; plenty of other '19s were still out in the old colors. #1930 and #1935 are wrapped with adverts. One last thing; I saw that supervisor unit #948 (a Ford Flex) has this fun license plate: There are also some new units in the ARide fleet: a mix of newer ElDo Aerotechs in a monochrome scheme, and what appear to be Starcrafts in the new livery. I didn't see any of the old sky-blue Challengers. 445 Is the lowest numbered active unit. Hadn't seen that 674 before... it must be brand new. Actually looks decent in the new scheme. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dtwtransit Posted February 25 Report Share Posted February 25 #675 was the only other one I saw like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns8401 Posted February 26 Report Share Posted February 26 10 hours ago, dtwtransit said: #675 was the only other one I saw like it. Just want to clarify… the new scheme Gilligs appear to be repaints not wraps. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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