RUNNING BEYOND THE WIRES.

Here's one more thing for New York public radio to put into their next pledge drive.  Study shows switch to electric buses poses challenges.

A new study shows the switch to electric buses may be tricky in colder climates.

Cornell University mechanical engineering professor Max Zhang said there are potentially a lot of upsides to using electric buses.

"There are potentially environmental benefits," he said. "You reduce greenhouse gases. There are health benefits in terms of reducing human exposure to diesel exhaust."

But there are also challenges. Zhang and other researchers at Cornell looked at how seven electric buses responded to the Ithaca area over a two-year period.

The study found that batteries on the electric buses consumed 48 percent more energy in cold weather (25-32°F). Zhang said it’s more efficient to charge electric vehicles when the battery is still warm, but buses are used more frequently than electric cars.

"For electric buses, they're operating all day, and the only time, potential time, you can charge them is after their service," Zhang said.

For optimal battery usage, communities with cold weather could work toward providing enough inside space and charging stations to charge their buses immediately after their routes. Zhang also pointed out that buses can struggle to keep cabins warm in the winter, particularly in urban areas with frequent stops for passengers.

"I think that definitely is another reason for the higher energy consumption for electric buses, to basically maintain the cabin temperature to the desirable range," he said.

In this situation, communities could consider having the bus doors open for less time at each stop.

Gosh, what would we ever do without studies?  The mind boggles at the prospect of an impatient electric bus operator scolding a transit-dependent older person about taking so much time to board, or some policy by which one or two passengers at most are permitted to board.  Let the record show that in winter, the biggest power expense at preservation railways operating Santa trolleys is for the electricity used to heat the cars: the traction draw is about the same summer or winter.

It's not that Cold Spring Shops hasn't already noticed.

Gosh, if only a technology existed to charge the batteries en-route.  The bus lines of Hamburg might be short enough for quick top-ups at the end of the line.  How hard, though, would it be to equip a battery bus with a pantograph configured to draw power from a pair of overhead wires?  Trackless trolley coaches used to be a thing.

Professor Zhang, the information is there should you seek it.  "Zhang said he’d like to see more pilot studies to provide additional data to communities, so they can see how to mitigate these challenges, and manufacturers, so they can develop products that would work well in different types of climates."

In Milwaukee, the fast-recharging stations at the end of the line keep the successor to the Wells streetcar moving.

Chuck Quirmbach photograph retrieved from WUWM.

Milwaukee's transit skeptics have called attention to this service being protected by diesel buses, perhaps some field-work is in order on my next trip to Sudsville.

As far as bypassing the battery and running under the wires, or perhaps emulating Milwaukee's circulator streetcar that draws power on parts of its trips to recharge the batteries it runs on for other parts of its trips, trackless trolleys are still an option.

With proper care, they run for a long time.

Two Milwaukee and one Chicago trackless trolley coaches from the American High, in preservation.  On some weekends the trackless trolleys, some dating from early in this century, operate, connecting with the streetcars.