Skip to main content

San Francisco to have all-electric bus fleet by 2035

An all-electric bus fleet is coming to San Francisco by 2035. The commitment stems from an agreement between mayor Mark Farrell and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which operates Muni – the city’s public transit system. Muni manages a fleet of zero-emission electric trolley buses and a fleet of low- emission electric hybrid vehicles. The SFMTA is rolling out new electric buses with higher capacity battery systems that supply power for its vehicles along several hybrid routes.
May 21, 2018 Read time: 2 mins

An all-electric bus fleet is coming to San Francisco by 2035. The commitment stems from an agreement between mayor Mark Farrell and the 4802 San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which operates Muni – the city’s public transit system.

Muni manages a fleet of zero-emission electric trolley buses and a fleet of low- emission electric hybrid vehicles.

The SFMTA is rolling out new electric buses with higher capacity battery systems that supply power for its vehicles along several hybrid routes.

Additionally, the agency plans to advance its technology when manufacturers can prove electric buses can withstand heavy ridership and steep hills. It would also consider new facilities that can charge a large fleet and develop an infrastructure to power vehicles in service or on the street.

John Haley, SFMTA’s transit director says: “While the battery technology is emerging rapidly, it isn’t quite ready for primetime. Manufacturers aren’t yet producing the number of all-electric buses San Francisco and other urban areas would need, nor could we guarantee that the vehicles would work for the required 15 years with heavy ridership and challenging topography.”

The SFMTA intends to buy a limited number of zero-emission battery electric buses in 2019 and evaluate how they perform on crowded and hilly routes.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Sign language reduces human error says Clearview
    September 26, 2019
    Wrong-way warning systems and advanced queue detection can help to reduce human error. They can also cut road accidents – and therefore road deaths, says Clearview Intelligence Where were nearly 1,800 deaths on the UK’s roads in 2018 – an average of five people dying each day. The largest single cause of serious injury is crashes at junctions (accounting for 33% of incidents), while the largest single cause of death was run-off road crashes (30%) “With vehicles increasingly being designed with saf
  • Vector offers EV journey planning app to drivers in New Zealand
    February 18, 2019
    Energy company Vector has partnered with Dutch start-up Chargetrip to launch an electric vehicle (EV) journey planning app in New Zealand aimed at reducing ‘range anxiety’ for drivers. Range anxiety is a term used to describe the stress EV users experience when their destination could be further than their vehicle can travel without charging. The project, supported by growth accelerator Elemental Excelarator, is seeking to help drivers switch to electric driving. The app will offer information o
  • Kapsch’s scalable tolling back office accepts mixed feeds
    September 15, 2014
    Arno Klamminger and Wolfgang Fleischer from Kapsch’s ETC Business Unit outline a new back office solution which addresses the ongoing changes in the road user charging sector. The rapidly increasing scale of some Road User Charging (RUC) schemes, both current and proposed, presents systems developers and manufacturers with significant opportunities in terms of product sales. However, it also presents them with significant challenges - and size is but one part – as at regional, national and international lev
  • Hayden AI goes to Washington
    April 24, 2023
    Company will install as many as 600 bus enforcement camera systems over 10 years