Press Herald. Portland, Maine public schools are replacing three buses in their 32-bus fleet with new compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles, beginning in the fall of 2005. These will be the first CNG school buses in the state.

This timing coincides with Portland Metro’s initiative to bring 21 CNG buses into its fleet over the next three to five years. The transit authority will fuel and service both its own vehicles and the school buses at a $1 million natural gas facility—funded mostly by the Federal Transit Administration—to be completed by May 2005.

A $100,000 federal grant through Maine Clean Communities will help purchase the $100,000 school buses, and the Maine Department of Education will cover 70 percent of the remaining $200,000 cost. The Federal Transit Administration is providing 80% of the funding for 10 of the Metro CNG buses, which cost some $345,000 each. The remainder of the funds will come from state and local budgets.

Orion Bus Industries, a division of DaimlerChrysler Commercial Buses, is to manufacture the CNG school buses. Orion also manufactures a diesel-hybrid transit bus, using a low-emissions Cummins diesel engine and hybrid drive from BAE Systems North America.

BAE Systems is a $4 billion defense supplier that—among many other things—provides a range of intelligent electronic systems for government and commercial markets. The Hybri-Drive comes from the Power Systems division of BAE, and is in use in both commercial and military applications.