Hydrogen Buses
The history of hydrogen buses is murky at best. What is known
is that an engineer from Germany, Rudolf Erren started converting
internal combustion engines (ICE) in buses and other large vehicles
to run on hydrogen and hydrogen mixes in the 1920's.
In 1975, Dr. Roger Billings put into service a hydrogen fueled
ICE Winnebago 21-passenger bus which ran between the cities of
Provo and Orem, Utah. This hydrogen bus had a Dodge engine and
metal hydride tanks.
Of course hydrogen buses come in two varieties including ICE
vehicles and fuel cell vehicles. Converting a transit bus with
an internal combustion engine that was already running gasoline
or diesel was far easier than developing a fuel cell.
Fuel cells for other applications such as tractor demonstrators
and Apollo missions were developed beginning in the 1950's and
60's. But hydrogen fuel cells for buses are a more recent phenomenon.
For instance, the Chicago Transit Authority unveiled the first
of their three hydrogen fuel cell buses in 1995. After this there
have been many projects in the U. S. and Europe for rolling out
prototype hydrogen fuel cell buses for pilot tests.
In Northern California in the U. S. in the Sacramento, Oakland,
San Jose, San Francisco areas companies such as Sunline and AC
Transit have rolled out a number of hydrogen fuel cell buses (most
of them hybrids as well) and the latest of these versions is operating
today.
In Europe and Australia, the Fuel Cell Bus Club was comprised
of three different projects including CUTE, ECTOS and STEP. These
projects make up the largest fuel cell bus fleet in the world.
Clean Urban Transport for Europe (CUTE) aimed at testing 27 Citaro
hydrogen fuel cell buses in several cities in the European Union.
Ecological City Transport System (ECTOS) was centered in Iceland
and involved running hydrogen fuel cell buses around the city
of Reykjavík, which also has the honor of unveiling the
world's first hydrogen fueling station.
Sustainable Transport Energy for Perth (STEP) involved running
three EcoBuses in Western Australia around the city of Perth.
The buses went into operation in September 2004.
CUTE, ECTOS and STEP have now been rolled into one project called
HyFLEET:CUTE which continues testing
hydrogen fuel cell buses among many different cities, gathering
and sharing data about fuel cells and hybrid systems.
In July 2006, Ford hydrogen shuttle buses went into production.
Ford had intended to produce 20 H2 ICE shuttle buses, which held
12 passengers each. About 15 hydrogen shuttle buses were actually
produced (some of the buyers backed out because of finances of
lack of fueling stations) between 2006 and 2008, most of which
are still in operation today and have logged around 350,000 miles.
Hydrogen fuel and buses are a natural fit. Since most city transit
buses run the same routes, this means only a small number (as
low as one) hydrogen fueling station is needed to supply the fuel.
As the hydrogen fueling infrastructure continues to expand so
will bus routes including those that travel to cities farther
away and must refuel at a second station.
On this page of hydrogen
bus pictures (PDF) there are several photos of both H2ICE
and fuel cell buses over the years.
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