Skip to main content

Clean diesel buses to power Maryland’s transit future

The Maryland Transit Administration is now in line to receive almost US$100 million to invest in 172 advanced clean diesel buses after receiving approval by the state’s spending board. The Baltimore Business Journal reported the new clean diesel buses will replace older vehicles – some which have been service for 15 years. The Maryland decision mirrors other significant orders of clean diesel and diesel-electric hybrid buses by transit agencies in major communities like New York, San Fran
February 2, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
The Maryland Transit Administration is now in line to receive almost US$100 million to invest in 172 advanced clean diesel buses after receiving approval by the state’s spending board.
           
The Baltimore Business Journal reported the new clean diesel buses will replace older vehicles – some which have been service for 15 years.  

The Maryland decision mirrors other significant orders of clean diesel and diesel-electric hybrid buses by transit agencies in major communities like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, and New Jersey.
 
“The Maryland Transit Administration made a strong and smart case for modernising its bus fleet, and the choice for clean diesel buses is the best choice,” said Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum.  “New clean diesels not only cost far less than other alternative powertrains, but are as clean – or cleaner – than alternatives. In this instance, the new clean diesels will reduce NOx and particulate matter by as much as 95 percent compared to the 10 or 15-year old buses they replace.”
 
Among public transit agencies, Schaeffer said diesel and diesel-hybrid buses account for about 75 percent of the national fleet.
 
“In approving this expenditure, the Board of Public Works joins other major transit agencies around the country that are finding that clean diesel technology is the all-around best choice for public transportation from an economical and environmental perspective - it’s more clean public transportation for the dollar,” he concluded.

Related Content

  • January 28, 2016
    MTC awards funding to modernise Bay Area transit systems
    San Francisco’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has allocated US$494 million to help more than 20 Bay Area transit agencies replace or rehabilitate aging buses, ferries, rail cars, tracks and bridges; update safety, control and communications systems; install new fare-collection equipment; maintain services for elderly and disabled passengers; and make other capital improvements. The commitment includes US$447 million of federal transportation funds, supplemented by US$47 million of revenues fr
  • August 7, 2017
    Government ban on petrol and diesel cars ‘doesn’t go far enough’, says UK adviser
    Writing in the Guardian newspaper, Professor Frank Kelly, chair of the UK Government’s Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, says fewer not cleaner vehicles are needed to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis, plus more cycling and walking and better transit systems. The Government recently released its Air Quality Plan, in which it announced that it will ban all petrol and diesel vehicles (including hybrids) from 2040, with only electric vehicles available after that.
  • October 17, 2019
    How can US transportation be ‘re-envisioned’?
    In her address to this year’s ITS America Annual Meeting, congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, chair of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, called for a ‘re-envisioning’ of transportation. Her speech is below – and ITS International asks a number of US experts what they would like to see ‘re-envisioned’…

    I would like to welcome  ITS America to the nation’s capital.

  • October 26, 2016
    Building the case for photo enforcement
    As red light enforcement is returning to some intersections and being shut down at others, new evidence has been released backing the safety campaigners, reports Jon Masters. In 2014, 709 Americans were killed in red-light-running crashes and an estimated 126,000 were injured according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).