New Zealand Celsias

Within discussions on sustainable transportation, high speed light rails and electric vehicles are the sexy topic of choice.  Buses generally are seen as necessary components of public transit, especially for lower income families, but are often viewed as dirty and visually unattractive.  Their noise, excessive emissions, or in the case of cities such as San Francisco and Seattle, their infrastructure (overhead electric lines for trolleybuses) contribute to this possible negative perception. However, public transit, whether it is buses or light rail, will continue to be a necessary sustainability component to our future transportation portfolio.  Can buses become quieter, more attractive, and remain as clean as their electric predecessors?

A new $2.7 million federal grant announced this past Thursday (November 24) by US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood makes Utah Transit Authority and the University of Utah the newest testing ground for clean public transit.  The new technology created by Utah State University’s Energy Dynamics Laboratory, and marketed through a company known as WAVE (Wireless Advance Vehicle Electrification) has the potential to make buses a more pleasant option. 

The technology is known for its “wireless power transfer technology, which allows vehicles to be charged from under the roadbed during the course of their daily operations”. 

James May, a vice president of WAVE states that electric pads are placed beneath asphalt, while another pad is attached underneath a “40 foot, full-sized, low-floor transit” bus.  These pads would be placed at specific bus stops that allow buses to recharge at transit centers or while waiting for passengers.  The asphalt pad would remain safe from weather (ex. snow), water, rocks, and vandalism, as it is under the pavement, and it would take only “a couple of minutes per route” for the bus to recharge.

This technology eliminates the noise and emissions of diesel and natural gas buses, and improves on the aesthetics of trolleybuses by eliminating the overhead lines.  Additionally, by using WAVE instead of overhead electric lines, you save on the maintenance and upkeep of those lines, as well as surrounding trees that have to be shaped around those lines.  This becomes extremely apparent in weather related events, where lines come down, or trees (and their limbs) fall onto those wires.  Such can be eliminated with the use of the WAVE pads.

Additionally, the use of WAVE pads has an extra advantage over other electric vehicles.  Normally, an electric bus would need an enormous battery, and would have to replenish it overnight to operate in full the next day.  Instead, because WAVE pads have the ability to charge regularly throughout the day, it does not need a large battery to store its energy.  It only needs “a battery that is barely big enough to do one route in order to come back and charge again.”  This has positive consequences on the efficiency of the bus, as a smaller battery means less weight, and less weight necessitates less energy to run the bus.

WAVE will be first displayed on the campus of the University of Utah, and should appear in full form in one year.  Its success in this project will determine future projects and its implementation in other cities.  For more information on the science behind WAVE, you can go here 

Celsias welcomes back Riley Smith (@Sust_Vanguard) to our writing team