Kansas Transit Agency Fully Adopts Ethanol-Diesel Blend

6 September 2005

Johnson County Transit (JCT), the public transit operation serving Johnson County, Kansas, is switching the balance of its fleet to O2Diesel’s ethanol-diesel fuel blend.

In March 2005, JCT initiated a two-phase implementation of O2Diesel (earlier post), with the first phase being an assessment of the emissions reductions and an operability evaluation on 15% of their 75 bus fleet, and the second phase being the fleet-wide conversion.

During Phase I, a team at the University of Kansas independently estimated that switching JCT vehicles to O2Diesel for their remaining service life would reduce air polluting emissions in the service area by 40 tons. In addition, the KU study team measured exhaust improvements in black smoke and opacity as high as 70%.

Johnson County, part of metropolitan Kansas City, is home to more than 500,000 residents. Johnson County Transit works closely with the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, the bi-state transit authority vested with the ability to provide transit services in the seven-county, two-state metro area.

The conversion is being supported by the CityHome program—a clean air partnership between O2Diesel, corporate sponsors and local transit authorities. Corporate sponsors make it possible for JCT to offset the added cost of the ethanol-diesel blend.

O2Diesel uses 7.7% ethanol, with up to 1% proprietary additive and a cetane improver.