November 19, 2007

The Philadelphia Diesel Difference - Working Group Meeting
Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC)
190 North Independence Mall West,
8th Floor,
Philadelphia, PA 19106

IN ATTENDANCE:
Eric Cheung, Clean Air Council
Fred Cummings, City of Philadelphia Division of Aviation
Tom Holl, Ransome CAT
Thomas Huynh, City of Philadelphia, Air Management Services
Sean Greene, DVRPC
Urszula Miezio, Johnson Matthey
Howard Pearlman, Drexel University
Alison Riley, City of Philadelphia, Air Management Services
Dan Snowden, PennDOT
Emille Williams, SEPTA

MINUTES TAKEN BY:
Eric Cheung

INTRODUCTIONS/ANNOUNCEMENTS
Alison welcomed the group and then proceeded to her announcements. The MDC grant the City received to retrofit its fire trucks has been finalized. $89,000 is being awarded through the grant to be matched with $60,000 from the City's own money. Alison said the City is looking to do a press event with MDC to publicize these retrofits. Meanwhile the City has been officially awarded an Alternative Fuels Incentive Grant from the State to purchase biodiesel fuel and a new tank to hold the fuel.

AMS and EPA met with the Philadelphia River Port Authority (PRPA) to discuss project ideas for EPA Region 3's current port diesel reduction RFP. While PRPA expressed interest in some possibilities at port facilities, Alison has not heard back whether they plan on applying. She hopes PRPA will be able to do so.

Alison participated in MDC's conference call about changes intended to improve the organization. The Ports and Freight Forums will merge to be part of one Goods Movement Forum. Alison will switch from heading the Construction Forum to heading the Urban Fleets Forum. Megan Gould will take over Alison's former position. The School Bus Forum will meet only on an as needed basis, particularly when school bus funding becomes available. All the other Forums will meet on a quarterly basis. Each of these Forums is working to come up with their own work plans by March of next year.

Alison noted that AMS, DVRPC and EPA met recently to discuss an EPA-funded program called the Sustainable Skylines Initiative. The Initiative is looking to have 10 pilot cities participate by 2020. Each of these cities will use public/private partnerships to implement citywide environmental projects. The Initiative is not limited to air quality improvements and considers environmental benefits across media. Examples of projects that can be undertaken under the Initiative include diesel retrofits, green buildings, tree-planting and environmental land use strategies. EPA provides the seed money for each of the cities to begin their projects.

Lastly, Alison remarked that she attended two notable events in the past month: a climate change event hosted by DVRPC and a freight conference. The former included a good presentation on peak oil from a representative of Post Carbon Cities (www.postcarboncities.net). The latter's stand-out presentation was by a representative from Norfolk Southern concerning how increased use of rail to transport goods leads to an emissions benefit by displacing trucks on the road. She would like to get someone from Norfolk to talk more about this at a future meeting.

PHILADELPHIA DIESEL DIFFERENCE ACTIVITIES UPDATE:
Eric reported that he and Sean Jacobs met with a representative from Norfolk Southern to discuss proposals for the EPA Region 3 Ports Sector Demonstration project. Norfolk is interested in upgrading their existing switcher locomotives with cleaner, more efficient "Genset" engines if funding is available. Since Norfolk has switchers that operate near the port, this could potentially be funded under the grant. Subsequent to this meeting Eric spoke to Bill Jones from EPA Region 3. Bill suggested that Norfolk applying for funding to repower its switcher locomotive engines with Genset engines may not be a strong proposal, particularly if EPA has to foot the full cost. Eric said another possibility for project ideas would be to retrofit a tugboat with pollution reducing technologies. The problem is finding a tugboat operator willing to work with the Council in time. Eric added that the Council would be interested in working with the PRPA on a non-technology proposal that would evaluate the emissions inventory at the ports. This type of project is included in the RFP. Urszula Miezio suggested that the Council also consider working with drayage trucks at the port, since they are very old and dirty and they stay in this area.

Eric reported that he is working on a mailing to waste haulers in the area. The list of waste haulers Clean Air Council is compiling will include small, independent operators in addition to the larger companies. Also, it will include a list of waste haulers that Alison had used for a separate mailing earlier on vehicle idling. Eric said an official with Upper Dublin Township had called him looking for suggestions on environmental actions her municipality and school district could take. Eric explained that the Upper Dublin community is forward-thinking when it comes to environmental initiatives. He mentioned to the caller that he has already met with Upper Dublin Township and sent information to their school district. Furthermore, Upper Dublin Township signed PDD's interested fleets form a few years ago. Eric thought that the fact Upper Dublin had contacted him suggests enthusiasm to get some project underway. Eric will follow up with them.

Lastly Eric said that his co-worker served on an environmental policy advisory committee to Mayor Elect Michael Nutter. The committee came up with recommendations on actions to take concerning air quality in the city, including working with Philadelphia Diesel Difference to retrofit more heavy duty vehicles. Eric added that Nutter's staff is aware of PDD and AMS. He will try and get a representative to attend the next PDD meeting.

COMMITTEE UPDATES:
Eric said the 2nd Mid-Atlantic Diesel Ports workshop was held earlier this month with good attendance. While the workshop focused on storm water management at port facilities, Eric did have PDD materials at the conference for attendants to take. Eric announced that the Port Environmental Task Force will be meeting once a quarter, because the original grant that covered the administration of this group (EPA CARE) has ended. Also, EPA National Clean Diesel's grant to retrofit port off-road equipment has been completed as well. Eric expects the air, water and brownfields reports for the Port Task Force to be completed and distributed by the end of December. The Council will apply for a second round of EPA CARE funding to cover the costs of implementing recommendations listed in these reports.

GRANT UPDATES:
Eric noted that he is only aware of the EPA Region 3 Ports RFP, which he already discussed.

MONTHLY PRESENTATION:
Emille Williams of SEPTA gave the monthly presentation. Emille is the Manager of Bus Engineering. He noted the last time he gave a presentation to a similar gathering of people, he was in a more defensive mode, because PennPIRG had just issued a report saying SEPTA needed to dump dirty diesel buses. Emille began by providing an overview of SEPTA's fleet: 1,342 transit buses, 38 trackless trolleys, 167 light rail cars (e.g., trolleys), 345 heavy rail cars (e.g., broad street line), and 349 regional rail cars. Of SEPTA's buses, 80 are 30-foot Transit Transmark, 155 are 60-foot Neoplan Articulated, 400 are 40-foot NABI buses, 638 are 40-foot New Flyer low floor buses and 32 are 40-foot New Flyer low floor hybrid-electric buses. Most of the 400 NABI buses were retrofitted with DPFs a few years ago and they are the ones that will be replaced with hybrids.

Emille clarified that the trackless trolleys are electric-powered buses hooked up to a 600 volt-line overhead. These vehicles are used on routes 66 and 75 out of the Frankford terminal. When asked what the significance of low floor buses is, Emille replied that they are easier for passengers to board, particularly handicapped. As a result picking up and dropping off passengers is expedited.

The 400 new hybrid buses that SEPTA will be ordering cost $507,790 a piece, which is $158,000 more than an equivalent diesel bus would cost. SEPTA will spend about $200 million in total for these new vehicles. These buses will be delivered at the rate of 100 per year beginning in 2008. SEPTA will have the option of ordering an additional 20 hybrid electric buses for each of the 4 years the 100 contractually obligated buses have been delivered.

As for the technology itself, SEPTA decided upon series hybrid system vehicles. This means that the motor is powered through a combination of a diesel engine and an electric battery. There is only one connection to the motor. In a parallel hybrid system, both the diesel engine and the electric battery have their own separate connections to the motor and can operate independently.

SEPTA's experience with the hybrid electric buses has been positive. These buses enjoy 20% faster acceleration and greater fuel savings than their diesel-only counterparts. Fuel savings occur primarily at speeds up to 20 mph, because at low enough speeds, the bus is basically being propelled by means of electricity. SEPTA consumes 16 million gallons of diesel a year, so 20% in fuel savings adds up to a lot. The hybrid electric buses average 3 to 4 mpg versus the traditional diesel buses that get only 2.4 - 2.5 mpg. Emille further observed a 100% improvement in brake lining life for the hybrids. This resulted in a 50% savings in brake maintenance costs.

Emille also said the hybrid buses are about 2-3 decibels quieter than regular buses, which can reach up to 78 decibels. Emille stated that SEPTA had one of its hybrid electric buses tested for its emissions. The results were a 95% reduction in PM and 66% in NOx as compared to regular diesel buses.

The first 100 buses will be delivered during the second half of 2008, Emille stated. SEPTA will roll out these new vehicles in all five counties. When asked how SEPTA would promote these new buses, Emille said that eventually it would be a moot point since all of SEPTA's new bus purchases will be hybrid electric going forward. He added, SEPTA is committed to purchasing only hybrids from now on, regardless of where it gets its funding. As for existing hybrid buses, Emille pointed out that people can identify them by the letter "H" next to their bus number. This number is printed on the front of every SEPTA bus just below the windshield and just above the blue-and-red SEPTA logo line.

At the end of his presentation, Emille fielded numerous questions from the audience. He explained that SEPTA's hybrid buses use a nickel metal hydride battery. The expected life for these batteries is 6 years and so far none of the batteries used in SEPTA's hybrids have failed. Emille said that he believes hybrid electric technology can extend the useful life of a SEPTA bus from 12 years to 15. He said the average SEPTA bus drives 35,000 miles a year and is in use 18-20 hours a day. He stated that SEPTA looked into operating a hydrogen bus, but that never panned out. He also said that SEPTA is not interested in using biodiesel fuel. When questioned about SEPTA's rejection of biodiesel, Emille replied that there were too many additional costs to consider including infrastructure costs from changing the fuel lines and segregating the fuel from regular diesel, higher fuel prices and the need to alter bus engines to accommodate the new fuel.

ONE MINUTE UPDATES:
Dan Snowden said PennDOT wants to see the City's language requiring the use of clean diesel in the South Street Bridge project so it can comment on it.

Eric announced that Clean Air Council's 40th Anniversary reception is coming up soon (December 13). Everyone is invited to attend.

Fred Cummings mentioned that the Airport has added a hybrid electric SUV to its fleet.

Newcomer Howard Pearlman introduced himself to the group. He is a mechanical engineer at Drexel University who focuses on combustion chemistry. He said he attended this meeting to see what was going on with diesel engines and to determine whether projects were available for his students to work on.

NEXT MEETING AND LOCATION:
The next meeting will be held December 10, 2007 at DVRPC.