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Istanbul Orders 50 Trams With GM-Allison Hybrid System
15 May 2008
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| The concept of APTS’ Phileas system. Click to enlarge. |
The Istanbul (Turkey) Transportation Authority has ordered 50 Metrobus trams equipped with the GM-Allison hybrid system. This will be the largest fleet of the hybrids in Europe by next year. The first of the 50 trams, built by Dutch bus company Advance Public Transport Systems BV (APTS), was recently delivered. (Earlier post.) The remainder of the order will be fulfilled this year and in 2009.
The APTS Phileas rubber-tired trams run on a free bus lane which is fitted with magnetic markers for electronic lane assistance and precision docking, offering the advantages of rail transport with the lower costs and flexibility of a bus system. The Phileas has a lightweight body, the hybrid propulsion system from GM-Allison, and a large transport capacity.
Metrobus is Istanbul’s first Bus Rapid Transit corridor, which provides dedicated bus lanes and off-bus fare collection for faster and more reliable public transportation. With 14 stations and 245,000 daily passengers, Metrobus Istanbul is one of the most effective BRT lines in the world.
GM-Allison hybrid-powered buses and trams deliver significantly better fuel economy than conventional diesel buses and trams, cut emissions and have operating sound levels approaching that of passenger cars. Other benefits include reduced maintenance costs resulting from extended brake, engine oil and transmission oil life; superior torque; and improved acceleration.
The GM-Allison hybrid technology was chosen following extensive technical review and analysis of competing solutions. It was found that as well as low emissions, the Allison system was significantly easier to integrate and saved around 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) per vehicle compared with competitor solutions, allowing cost and emissions reductions and an increase in payload.
—Jos Jansen, Marketing and Project Management, APTS
GM debuted the hybrid technology for transit buses in 2003. GM licenses the clean hybrid technology to Allison Transmission, which assembles and sells the hybrid transmission to bus and tram manufacturers.
So far, 1,039 GM-Allison hybrid-powered buses and trams are operating in North America and Europe. Major orders from transit agencies in Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Minneapolis/St. Paul for more than 1,700 buses will more than double the fleet. In May 2007, Dresden, Germany received the first international delivery of GM-Allison buses.
A study conducted in 2006 by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, comparing transit buses with GM-Allison’s hybrid in operation in Seattle, Washington, with their diesel counterparts found that the hybrid buses had a 27% higher fuel economy on average compared with that of diesel buses. Over the 12-month period, the diesel buses also carried a 4.5% higher maintenance cost than the hybrids: $0.46 per mile for the diesels, compared to $0.44 per mile for the hybrids.
Combining fuel costs with maintenance costs, an evaluation of total cost per mile gave the hybrids a distinct operational economic advantage: $1.06 per mile compared to the diesel $1.25 per mile. (Earlier post.)
May 15, 2008 in Diesel, Hybrids | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)
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Comments
What a coincidence! I just passed thru Istanbul airport last Tuesday. The first thing you notice outside is the smell of diesel.
Posted by: DS | May 15, 2008 5:03:32 AM
Oh BTW the price of diesel here is $11/gallon.
Posted by: DS | May 15, 2008 5:06:17 AM
These buses will also run on overhead wire electricity. Since they run in their own lane and are magnetically guided, mains electric power is a serious option. The high installation cost of overhead wires would be recovered by not having to pay the high cost of diesel over the lifespan.
Quieter buses running in their own lanes, without the herky-jerkiness of weaving in an out of the traffic lane and accelerating noisily, would increase ridership substantially, I believe.
This system would adapt well to city street use. Turn bus streets into one-ways, with the buses running next to the berm in the parallel parking lane, and replace parallel parking with angle parking on the other side. Buses coming the other way would run on the next block over which would be one-way the opposite direction. This would make for smooth, efficient operation.
Posted by: fred schumacher | May 15, 2008 7:20:56 AM
can we please stop calling this a tram? «A tram, tramcar, trolley, trolley car, or streetcar is a railborne vehicle, lighter than a train, designed for the transport of passengers (and/or, very occasionally, freight) within, close to, or between villages, towns and/or cities, primarily on streets.»
kthxbai.
Posted by: lensovet | May 15, 2008 9:59:50 AM
These buses will also run on overhead wire electricity."Will"? Do you know that that's planned? Or did you mean "could"?
There's a major complication in trying to do so. In electrified rail systems, steel wheels and rails provide the ground return path, so only a single overhead power wire is needed. With rubber-tired buses, overhead wires must provide both power and return paths.
Not only does that make running the overhead cables much more complicated, but it means that a simple pantograph can no longer be used for contacting the single power wire. Dual pole-mounted contact arms must be used.
Those aren't killer problems, and I'm pretty sure there have been two-wire electrified bus systems in the past. But I suspect that the extra effort required to implement overhead electrified bus lines is one of the reasons they disappeared in favor of diesel buses.
Posted by: Roger Arnold | May 15, 2008 11:33:00 AM
Roger, San Francisco currently has electrified buses, I think in a setup similar to what you've described. I've not ridden them, but their low noise and emissions are greatly appreciated as a pedestrian!
Posted by: j.william | May 15, 2008 12:14:19 PM
roger, what you describe is called a "trolleybus" and is in use in many countries around the world. the soviet bloc states were particular fans of using them.
Posted by: lensovet | May 15, 2008 5:28:13 PM
@Fred
It sounds like Chicago would be an ideal city for what you describe. Essentially every street is one way (save for Michigan Ave, Chicago Ave, Congress Pkwy) and they alternate. Delaware runs east, Chestnut runs west, Pearson runs east, Dearborn runs north, Clark runs south. You get the picture.
Posted by: GreenPlease | May 15, 2008 8:01:19 PM
I love the trolley buses here in Vancouver, they seem to merge into traffic more quickly and brake smoother than their diesel counterparts. I've asked bus drivers about them and all have answered that they prefer the electrics, with noise levels being the primary reason. The buses using the Vossloh-Kiepe system have 240kW drive motor, 70km/h top speed. Drivers tell me that above 60km/h you risk the poles coming off the lines passing through intersections of the overhead wire system, especially in the rain.
Posted by: dc | May 15, 2008 8:01:28 PM
Since these busses drive only very short distances between two stops and they dock electronically, it should be relatively easy to provide recharging of the batteries at every stop, making it a Plug-in hibrid.
A very small battery could probably provide an almost completely electric driving, while keeping the price (of the batteries) low and allowing longer distances if necessary.
Posted by: Alain | May 16, 2008 4:11:52 AM
@ Alain -
the Fraunhofer IVI institute has developed an AutoTram concept very similar to the APTS Phileas. One of the propulsion alternatives uses a flywheel to store electrical energy that is rapidly topped up at selected bus stops, using stationary ultracapacitor cabinets to avoid overloading the grid.
http://www.ivi.fraunhofer.de/frames/images/autotram/Autotram_RollOut.pdf
It's a very expensive solution, I suspect the alternative of combining a small diesel or CNG engine with that flywheel or else an on-board ultracapacitor bank will be more attractive to transit operators. High-capacity articulated buses are heavy vehicles and need a lot of power to accelerate back into traffic. Likewise, recuperative braking needs to be efficient for optimal results - batteries are really a suboptimal technology for this particular application.
Posted by: Rafael Seidl | May 16, 2008 7:09:42 AM
